Twilight of the Animorphs
by The Grimwar
Summary: [AU] On their last day of Summer Camp a group of friends go for a hike and find a dying Andalite. They're offered the power to morph and warned of a new threat. They're not the first to invade Earth, but they're the first with the power to end it. They must learn fast, discerning friend from foe is harder than they could imagine, and one mistake is all it will take to kill them all
1. 0 The Last Dance

**Hey guys, I know you haven't heard from me in a while, because while I was so focused on my books, I completely abandoned this life of mine. So here we have Twilight of the Animorphs, my latest story idea. It's an AU that I feel will be really really good and refreshing for fans of the series! Enjoy.**

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 _All throughout the forest the beings flew. Concealed by the cover of night and their distance from human civilization, there were no witnesses, and nobody to get in the way. The beings flitted, darted, and sometimes even smashed against each other above the trees at speeds so fast, no living creature on Earth could duplicate it. The creatures would only be perceived by anyone who was lucky or unlucky enough to witness it as balls of light. There were many combatants, they raced in totally random and chaotic paths like fireworks swirling into the sky then exploding. The beings that were there were divided into two colors, the blue ones were larger and more powerful, they were chasing their enemy who was represented by a lone green light._

 _Their target was too agile to hit properly with their ranged weapons, and in order to avoid causing damage, they decided to try and ram him._

 _All over the forest the blue ones chased the lone green light. It swerved and swooped with no discernible destination, only the objective of escape. Dodging the blue lights and narrowly avoiding getting rammed, the fight seemed to be hopelessly in the blue light's favor, as it was forty two against one. The green light then took a massive risk, he dipped below the treeline, losing his pursuers for a few precious moments, smashing though every tree branch in his path, then rose above the branches again in a sharp ascent. The green light turned to the right and smashed into one of the blue lights from underneath, the blue light was shattered by the ramming action. The being was killed almost instantly in a shower of sapphire embers, blue fire consumed all of the pieces that were falling to the ground. There would be barely ashes left by the time the debris hit the forest floor._

 _The green light fled, the blue lights all pursued their elusive enemy, intent on avenging their comrade. The green light took an elliptical path, far more straight than previously, far more predictable. The rest of the blue lights began to catch up, they were finally able to utilize their superior speed, they got closer and closer. The lone green light continued his curved route, then when they were fifty feet away from him, he dipped below the tree line yet again. The blue lights continued to take chase, this time however, they had discovered their prey had flown into a small canyon._

 _The blue lights pursued, following the green light as its way of flying once more turned into an erratic pattern meant to dodge enemy fire. The Blue Lights had seemingly won, their foe was trapped, they charged their weapons to maximum firepower moments after entering the canyon._

 _But they fell right for his trap._

 _A multitude of large guns designed to take down these kinds of ships opened fire. Many of the blue lights exploded into pieces that were scattered and fell as they dissipated. Nothing left to bury, but nothing left for their enemy to take and reverse engineer. The blue lights tried to rise out of the canyon, but it was too late, they had paid the price for their mistake as the green light's people crowed in victory._

 _The blue lights that survived the ordeal shot out of the canyon, and the green light rose to meet them, the number of combatants was far smaller now. One, to_ six _, with four of those blue lights wounded. ((It seems you were right,)) The Visser spoke to his opponents with a sneer. ((This was not a fair fight_ at all _! Care to try again_ _? I'll enjoy this far more than you did_ _!)) The green fighter crowed in victory as he finally turned to face his pursuers. He fired the weapon on his ship at the enemy, it was a special craft available only to the morph capable elite of the Andalite military. His was an outdated model, but it could hold it's own against modern Andalite technology, especially with his skill at flying it. He wasn't an Andalite, yet here he was, commanding one, one of the greatest blasphemies possible in the Andalite's eyes._

 _The warlord circled to the left, putting himself between the Andalite Biocrafts and the human city in the distance, he charged his cannon and before firing. He twirled in the air, a deliberate move that messed up the fighter's evasion calculation computers. A green bolt of energy surged through the night, and the second to last of the undamaged Andalites fighters was destroyed. In response the Biocrafts launched all of their missiles, Visser Three shot at the rockets as they homed on his position. The warlord destroyed them one by one, but there were too many to destroy them all._

 _The Visser was hit, his ship, which was his morphed body, was wracked by explosions, each one powerful enough to bust open a bunker_ _. ((AAAAAAAAAARRRGH!)) The Warlord bellowed in an absolutely demonic shriek of agony, the telepathic sound of his voice raking the consciousness of every living thing close enough to hear it. It was obvious that the alien had taken considerable damage._

 _He was bleeding from two massive holes in his port side, but that did not stop him. He turned toward the Andalites and fired all of his weapons, the four wounded fighters did not last long. And that left only one Andalite to stand in the warlord's way._

 _((THIS ENDS NOW!)) The lone Andalite warrior uttered in his deadliest enemy's head._

 _The two biocraft charged at each other, dodging their opponent's fire. As the two craft got nearer and nearer to each other, both of them increased in speed. In the end though, both ships rammed headfirst into each other, producing a massive flash of light._

* * *

 _Some hours after the battle, a human wearing a black, tattered, bloodied trench coat was running through the wilderness. He was barefoot, wanting to get as far away as possible from the place he was leaving. He could remember the crowing in his head, how the Abomination laughed as his friends and family were cut down. He came to a road on the freeway and stopped, leaning against a tree he began to slide down. Instead he stood upright, then shone a light on top of the gaping wound in his side and grimaced. What looked like purple obsidian was embedded in him, there was less of that debris stuck in his gut than his pain indicated, though that was of only superficial solace._

I must make it to the mountain _, he thought._ It's our only chance, he's too powerful.

 _He then began to try and remove some of the purple shrapnel with a pair of tweezers that he had in his pocket. With the light shining down on him, he moved to remove one particularly large piece of shrapnel. When he grabbed the piece he bit his tongue in an effort to not scream from the pain. The substance began to convulse when it was grabbed, twitching erratically, making the wound in his side all the more worse. He gritted his teeth and pulled out the shard, then it was still, he then started taking gasping breaths, blood leaking from his mouth. He held the shard in front of his face with a clear expression of disgust. The offending item appeared as purple obsidian, but the part that was stuck in him turned into a jagged needle, penetrating him deeper. He produced a container that looked like a pill bottle and dropped the fragment inside there, he shook his head as he wiped his sweat soaked brow._

I can't remove all of those pieces out here, I must reach the mountain first. _He then took out a piece of fabric and stuffed it inside the hole in his belly, grimacing all the while doing so. He heard a howl in the distance, unlike anything that belonged on the planet Earth, he shook his head, and a fearful mask appeared on his face._ _Then he noticed a sound with his sharp hearing, and when he turned he saw the lights on the road he clung tighter to the tree._

They've found me!

 _But his scanners detected nothing, nothing out of the ordinary, it was just a regular semi truck, at this information the man smiled. He detached himself from the tree and bent his knees. When the truck was almost parallel to him, he ran. It was a sprint, his most powerful burst of speed, fifteen feet traversed in a second, all the while he ignored the agony in his gut._

 _He landed with barely a sound, letting out a very agonized gasp as he latched on to the back end of the trailer, accidentally breathing in his own blood. The gasp would certainly not be heard in the cabin of the truck, and the quiet coughing wouldn't have been noticed either. He prayed the route the vehicle was going would take him to his destination. It was almost dawn, when he looked he could just barely see the sky beginning to get brighter. Hoping he had lost them, the man held on for dear life to the trailer of the truck, hoping beyond all hope that he would make it there in time._

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 **So, there's the prologue! So, what do you think? Please let me know your thoughts, I'd REALLY love to hear your opinion.**


	2. I Dawn

_u/BPRoberts-Thank you for pointing out a certain flaw in Marco's dialogue so I may adjust accordingly._

 **So here it is! Chapter 1, actually chapter 1, I AM going to finish this fanfiction! I promise, the 90 views and 1 review I've had since I first posted this is very encouraging, without further adieu, chapter 1! In this you will notice that something more was changed that was...less than obvious. What is it? You'll have to figure it out for yourself!**

* * *

 _Dawn_

* * *

So, I suppose we should get this started. My name is Jake. Just Jake. No last name; if I'm giving you a last name it has to be a fake. Sorry, but we can't be too careful, and we can't exactly break or bend the rules that were put in place to keep us alive.

If it were up to me I wouldn't be writing this at all, but the others insisted. The idea is to leave behind some sort of record of what happened, and for some reason the others decided I'd be the best person to begin the story. I only agreed after some extra conditions were put in place, like the first-name-only rule, but in the end I found writing the experiences down to be… cathartic.

Now. With introductions out of the way let's get to the gist of why I'm writing this. My God, I wouldn't have believed it at the time, but what's about to transpire in this story is just _insane_.

Long story short, the Earth is being invaded. Still. This isn't like the ones you know about from the news. They're the deadliest yet. And much sneakier. The Controllers are as brutal and monstrous as they come.

What is a Controller, you might ask? Well, we don't actually know what they call themselves, if anything. All we know is that they're a parasite, sort of like a tapeworm. Only this tapeworm is the size of a large slug that crawls up your nose and turns you into a puppet, to that point where you're a slave with absolutely no control over your own body. You can't control your mouth, your eyes, the tips of your fingers… Not even your mind is safe from their grasp. If you're lucky, you may be able to twitch a little. If you manage to distract the Controller, that is.

Now, let's begin. It was the last day of Summer Camp. She wanted us all to come so badly that she even paid for our admission, though with her kind of allowance that's not as big of a feat as it may seem. Her mom's a lawyer.

We were in the camp's central pavilion, just after sunrise. We had just finished breakfast and were listening to the head councilor's announcement.

I was sitting by the people from my Cabin, as was everyone else. The kids I was grouped with came from all over the state, but aside from that I didn't know them too well. I spent more time with Marco and Rachel.

"Now, I don't know about you, but these were some of the most memorable two weeks I've ever had. Wouldn't you agree?" Jenny asked, to which most of the room made sounds of agreement.

"Now, one last announcement. The buses that will bring you home will be here at 10. Until then, you're free to do whatever you want as long as it's within the camp boundaries. If you want to go on a hike, ask your counselor to accompany you. That'll be all, have a good day."

The pavilion came to life with the noise of people socializing. I pushed my way through the crowd to the table where my best friend Marco was sitting at, to find that he was already on his way to mine.

"Hey Marco, what's up?" I said when we got close enough to hear each other.

"Nothing much, just enjoying the outdoors."

I raised my eyebrows. "I thought you didn't want to go to this camp?"

"I have a better appreciation for nature now. Turns out I like going on hikes, I just prefer to do it with the benefit of bug spray."

"So, does that mean you're down to go on one last hike?" I whispered to him.

"Why are you whispering? Wait, are you saying we're going by the ghost town?"

"Rachel has a friend who agreed to take us and anyone I want to bring down there."

"Then by all means count me in!" Marco said as he initiated a fist bump between us before we began walking. "Now, to find Miss Blond Bombshell."

"Dude! She's my cousin!"

"Chillax, I promise I won't be creepy or anything. But if she asks me out, I definitely won't mind."

We made our way over to the table my cousin was supposed to be sitting at. It was one of the girl's cabins that was occupying the space. Except Rachel wasn't there.

"Uh, Marco? We have a problem." I announced.

"What?"

"Rachel's not there." I motioned to the table where she was supposed to be sitting at.

"What? Of course she's there! She has to be there! That's… her… table." Marco insisted before seeing the evidence for himself, then trailing off. "Alright, where's Waldo?" Marco said in an annoyed tone of voice.

"I don't know, where is he?" A voice spoke up from behind us, when I turned to respond I gasped.

In front of us was a kid our age with dirty blond hair. He had a sort of dorky looking appearance, but was really, really big. Like, the tallest guy I've ever seen. He was wearing a pair of ratty jeans, and some shoes that had seen better days. His eyes had a sort of vacant look in them, as if he was daydreaming; I _know_ this guy.

" _Tobias_?" I asked in a disbelieving voice.

"Oh, sorry," the kid said in a very nasal voice. "You must be thinking of someone else."

Oops, not him.

"Excuse me, Rick." Rachel said as she shooed the stranger to the side.

"Rachel! There you are!" I said as I walked over to her and hugged her. Rachel is very pretty, though I don't really think of her that way since she's my cousin. She has crystal clear blue eyes, blond hair, and one look at her and you'd know she wouldn't look out of place on a runway. But she is more interested in being a professional gymnast, despite being abnormally tall, even for an adult.

"Mind if I join in?" Marco asked jokingly, his arms spread wide.

"Sorry, but no, Marco," Rachel said. "Hugs are only for people who are close."

"But I'm Jake's best friend!"

"Sure, but that doesn't mean you're close enough to me for a hug."

He shrugged. "Well, worth a try." He walked next to us instead, and lowered his voice to a whisper. "Then how about this little trip we're going on. Did you find our guide yet?"

"Sure, but you both have to promise me that you won't back down."

It was almost like she was a playground kid daring her friends to do something.

"Uh, what's going to happen on this hike?" I asked.

"Oh, nothing." Rachel said coyly, "I just want your word that you won't back out."

"I don't know…" I mumbled, unsure.

"I'm only going as long as Jake's going," Marco said offhandedly.

"Oh, so you're going to back out of this even though a girl like myself didn't even hesitate?"

"It's not that I'm scared!" Marco scoffed. "But I can't just leave Jake here all by himself, can I?" Then he gave me a nudge and motioned for me not to chicken out behind Rachel's back.

Fine.

"Alright, I'm in," I sighed. "I promise I won't back out."

"Yes!" Rachel said, an excited look appearing in her eyes as she started to walk. "Our guide's waiting right next to the pool, we should be going out there right n-"

She didn't even get to finish before it happened.

Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring ring ring ring!

We flinched at the sound, looking around for its cause. At a moment's notice the entire pavilion was in chaos. The councilors were scrambling around, looking for whatever triggered the fire alarm.

"Run! Fire! Run!" Saddler, my other cousin, yelled at the top of his lungs. My eyebrows were raised.

"Did you seriously set off the fire alarms?" Marco asked my cousin incredulously.

"We have to make a break for it before they lock us down!" She quickly said before running off. We both followed and left the pavilion unnoticed. We sprinted as fast as we could to make sure we left their sight as quickly as possible. Marco fell behind, being the shortest, but not by much. Rachel was tall and the most athletic of the group, so she was in the lead.

Before long, we passed into the trees that stood between the pavilion and the side of the camp where the path to the pool and hiking trails were. The alarm was still blaring by the time we faded from their sight, with the trees hiding us we slowed down.

"Rachel…" I started over the sound of us running over the gravel path.

"It wasn't me, I swear!" Rachel said with an annoyed tone. "Saddler just happened to pull the switch right that moment. I had nothing to do with it."

I don't know whether Rachel was lying, but I decided to drop it. I wasn't about to let that ruin what was supposed to be a good time.

After a bit, we slowed to a walk. I was content to listen to the birds and bugs let out their chorus of noise that was everywhere in the forest during the summer. We didn't say a word until we came up to the hill where the pool was at. Its most notable feature was a series of wide concrete stairs going all the way up to the top of the hill, where the pool was located. I looked to the top to see a fenced area with a changing room looming above it, then I looked around some more, and yet…

"Hey guys? Anyone else out of breath?" Marco panted.

"No," My cousin said curtly, flipping her hair with her hands. Despite the running and the general camp activities from the past two weeks, her hair was somehow still supermodel perfect. I have no idea how she manages that.

"So Rach, where is this guide?" I asked her. "And who is he?"

"Heheh, you'll see soon enough," she chuckled and whispered to me before yelling out towards the treeline. "You can come out now!"

When our guide emerged from behind the trees, I instantly understood Rachel's intentions. Because out of the trees came _Cassie_.

Cassie's Rachel's best friend, even though they're pretty much polar opposites. She's a short African American girl who doesn't dress like most other girls. She wears her hair short and was in her signature overalls.

She's also the girl I have a crush on, and despite my best efforts, Rachel knows it.

Rachel was trying to play matchmaker on us!

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 **And there it is! Chapter 1, hope you enjoyed it, and if you decide to comment, please leave behind any criticisms, questions, and suggestions you have. Have a wonderful day! And kudos for the wonderful flaks314, for editing this new chapter!**


	3. II An Uncomfortable Road

**This is awesome! Twilight of the Animorphs as of publication of this chapter has 191 views, 2 reviews, and 1 follower! Thank you all so much for your attention! This chapter has been edited faithfully by flaks314 to make this reading experience the most faithful to how the books read. Now, enjoy a chapter of sweet but awkward teenage romance!**

* * *

 _An Uncomfortable Road_

* * *

"Hey Jake," Cassie said as she walked to us. Holding one of her hands behind her back. I was silent for a moment, then I couched to break the awkwardness.

"Hey Cassie, how have you been?"

"I'm fine, how are you?"

"Good," was all I managed to say.

Awkward silence permeated the air.

Rachel coughed into her hand to try to break the silence. Marco just scratched the back of his head and looked away.

"So, I… I brought you this," Cassie eventually said, presenting the sunflower she'd been hiding behind her back to me. A few of its petals were missing and the head was leaning slightly to the side because the stem was partly broken.

"Thank you," I said while taking it. I looked into Cassie's eyes, and I saw everything I needed to know. She _actually_ likes me. I started to think that maybe I should be thankful for Rachel playing matchmaker. I looked to Rachel and nodded my thanks, hoping it properly conveyed what I was feeling. My armpits were sweaty, my breathing had gotten faster, I was furling and unfurling my fingers. I turned to Cassie, shoved aside all of my nervousness, and came to the conclusion that we were a match made in Heaven, I opened my mouth to speak…

… then closed it as the words died in my brain. I repeated this every few seconds, sometimes the words dying on my lips. After a time that seemed like forever, I spoke up.

"Thank you…" was all I could manage to say, then I blushed.

"So, I… I brought you this," Cassie eventually said, and presented what she'd been hiding behind her back. I took it from her and said "thank you" without thinking, then stared at it.

It was a sunflower. The head was leaning slightly to the side because the stem was partly broken, and a few of its petals were missing. But never mind all that. She just gave me a flower? Did Rachel put her up to this? Or… could it be that she actually likes me back?

I looked back up to her. She was looking down at the flower as well now. She was blushing pretty obviously, but was it because the flower looked a lot better before she'd nervously pressed it against her back for a few minutes, or because she was just doing all this for Rachel?

I opened my mouth to say something helpful, but nothing came out for what seemed like forever.

"Thank you," I eventually heard myself say. Again.

 _What?! That's all you could manage?!_

"O-oh, good, th-that's good!" Cassie said as she turned away.

"Ay yi yi, that was disappointing," Marco said, scratching his head.

"Well, the flower was sweet. But let's do it. We're burning sunshine!" Rachel said as she ran off toward the hiking trail.

We walked up the hill that was past the stairs to the pool, then continued along an overgrown trail that went further up the mountain. It was pretty clear from the state of it that no one had been there for a very long time. And it wouldn't exactly have been an easy path even in its prime.

"Man, these hills are _killing_ my feet!" Marco panted, wiping the sweat off of his brow. "I like hiking, but seriously, can we walk on a flatter path?"

"Yeah," Rachel said. "I agree with Marco for once, these hills are seriously hard on my ankles! Any ideas Cass?"

"Depends on how much flatter you want it," Cassie asked. "I think there's some more even ground downhill, but not much less steep than this. I know for sure that there's a trail higher up that's almost even."

"Are you kidding Cassie? I want it as flat as how flat-earthers think the world is! I want it as flat as Coke that's been shaken up for 10,000 years, I want it as flat as Wilee Coyote when he hits the ground! Flat as 1-dimensional pancakes!"

"Marco?" I said to him, turning behind to talk to him, he stopped.

"…Polo," he responded after hesitating, he was chuckling and wearing a wide smile.

"I think that's enough."

"Okay, let's take the top path, sooner the better!" Marco said as he walked uphill.

As Cassie walked uphill she went past me, her hand brushed up against mine. In an instant, partly from regretting my fumble with my words earlier, I grabbed her hand.

Cassie looked at me and began to blush. I must have been blushing right back at her, because I could feel my heart pounding in my head. Then she turned away and started walking uphill, pulling me along with her. I briefly looked back at Rachel, who was wearing this wide and stupid grin, was giving me two thumbs up, and was nodding yes eagerly and rapidly.

* * *

17 minutes later

* * *

"This is much better!" Marco said as he held his arms out, absorbing the now brightly burning sunshine. "Cassie, you know your way around so much of the land no matter how little time you spend in it! It's amazing, you're like…like…Terra! Greek Goddess of the Earth!"

"Thanks Marco! Glad to be of service!" Cassie said with a smile, while we were still holding hands.

It's so weird. Now that I'm doing it, I'm sort of used to it, like it's not a big deal. Technically this is our first date!

"Hey Marc?" I said uneasily.

"No," he said in a very abrupt voice. My eyes widened out of shock before realizing that he was messing with me.

"Now don't be rude, Marco," Rachel called out from behind as I chuckled.

"Okay, what's on your mind, J-man?"

"I think you meant Gaia? Terra's the Roman Earth Mother."

"Bah, Roman gods are just foreign fanfictions of the Greek ones. So they're the same dirt mommy!"

I heard Rachel quietly laughing in the background. I looked behind to see her hand over her mouth. "Unbelievable," I heard my cousin whisper.

"Hey Rachel, for real though, if you were a Greek Goddess, which one would you be?" Marco asked.

Rachel paused before speaking very curtly. "Not Hera."

"What?" Cassie asked, "why not? Isn't she the queen of the gods?"

"Yeah, but if you remember, a lot of the Greek gods were actually petty, cruel, and straight up abused humanity in almost all of their myths," Rachel clarified.

"Ah," Cassie said.

"But for real, I think I'd be Artemis."

"The chaste Goddess of hunting?" Marco said with a smile. "The hunting part I get, killing things seem to be your forte with how vicious you can be, but the chastity part?"

"Artemis' heart only belonged to one person, a guy named Orion. After he was gone, killed by Gaia, Artemis never looked for another."

"So… where's your Orion?" I asked, curious.

"I haven't found him yet," Rachel said softly.

Marco then grinned, his lip quivered before saying out loud. "Bet you 50 bucks that'll only happen when Rachel runs out of Spice Girls."

"Marco!" Rachel shouted, I looked behind to see her running up to us with a furious expression on her face, ready to exact justice.

"Wait, WAIT NO! I'M SORRY!" Marco frantically turned around, putting his hands between himself and Rachel. "I know you're not gay, I was just kidding!"

"Prove it!"

"You're not gay! You're not gay for the Spice Girls, I promise! I promise I was just joking!"

"And…?" Rachel prodded him.

"You're not gay for Lady Gaga either! Or Jennifer Hewitt, Julia Stiles, Destiny's Child, or Katie Holmes!"

Good, this isn't turning violent.

"And?" Rachel prodded him further.

"You're _definitely_ gay for Hillary Clinton though," Marco said with a wry smile.

 _Oh no._

"OH, THAT'S IT! IT'S ON!" Nothing could stop Rachel from taking a swing at Marco, but he dodged before her punch hit his face. It took both me and Cassie to keep her off of him. We only needed to do it for a moment, then Rachel calmed down and stopped struggling.

"Okay, I'm sorry, I really am. No hard feelings, right?" Marco said as he walked back to the rest of the group to hold out his hand to Rachel.

Rachel crossed her arms, not paying attention to him.

"Hey, don't leave me hanging."

Rachel shook her head and smiled, said, "all right, fine," and shook Marco's hand.

"Okay, so, now that that's out of the way… Are we there yet?" Marco asked Cassie.

"No, we still have a little way to go, but we're close."

"Are we there yet?" Marco repeated as the path turned back toward the mountain, shading us from the sun.

"NO!" Rachel said vehemently. "No, no… Marco, please don't. God, you're just as annoying as the Helmacrons at times!" Rachel said.

The Helmacron invasion was the least serious of all the alien menaces. They tried to take over the world, but they weren't really a problem because… well. They have egos bigger than Mt. Everest, but they're actually the size of a grain of sand. Their spaceships are the size of toys. During their attempts at invasion, they hijacked TV channels worldwide and broadcasted their intentions for all the world to hear in screeching, high-pitched; make-you-kill-yourself-with-a-teaspoon annoying glory.

When they appear they make it obvious, but we still try to eradicate them as quickly as possible. Not because they're actually a threat but because they are not tolerable at all! But I don't really agree with responding so extremely. The record for the fastest incursion dispatched is held by Soviet Russia, 2 minutes. One part of me feels bad for them, another part of me finds it darkly funny.

"Hey guys, seriously though," Marco said with a tone that was actually serious. "Have any of you guys realized that all the aliens have just gone quiet for no reason? They're just… dug in."

" _What_?" Rachel said. "Are you for real?"

" _Yeah_ ," I said, thinking. "Yeah, now that you've mentioned it, there hasn't been a single news report of any alien offensive, anywhere on the globe, for a week now."

"Huh. You're right, there hasn't been a single Nartec sighting in _months_ either," Rachel said, referencing the amphibious aliens who have been trying to conquer the US West Coast. "They just declared a truce, left the cities and vanished into the oceans, never to be seen again."

"It gets even weirder. Don't tell anyone this, but you know how my Dad's working with the military, right?"

"Yeah, and?" Rachel said.

"Well, he is in the military. He's not a soldier, obviously, but the top-secret part of his work is that… is that he's the leading global expert on Z-space communication's technology."

"Wait, what?!" I said in shock.

"Hold up…" Rachel said, "You mean to tell me that your Dad's ETCS? Are you telling me that he's monitoring alien signals all over the planet?"

ETCS, short for Extraterrestrial Counter-Strike Group, is the international organization dedicated to repelling alien incursions all over the planet. After the Cold War ended, Russia and a lot of the Soviet-allied countries of Earth joined.

"He's ETS, ET Surveillance, to be specific. But yeah, Dad's a part of _ETCS_. He's actually a high ranking ETS dude, bona fide brass in his own field. The ETS' main mission is to reverse engineer alien communication's technology, and listen in on the invader's chatter," Marco explained.

"They've gone completely silent. No Z-Space chatter anywhere on the planet!" he continued, motioning with his hands. "They've been on mute for two weeks now."

"Two weeks?" I said in surprise. " _Really_?"

"Wait," Cassie said. "If they've been holed up for a week now, how come you know about it? We've been at this camp for eight days?"

That _is_ a good point.

"Uh, I," Marco stuttered for a moment. "I snuck into one of the guidance councillor's buildings, to leave a funny note. One of them had a radio tuned on to the news, there was all sorts of speculation about it."

"So that's what you got whipped beaten and flogged for?" Rachel said, referring to the time Marco had to do a lot of cleaning when he got caught.

"Hey, keep in mind I was never caught!"

"Just like how nobody's been catching alien radiowaves?" Cassie said.

"All right, this is getting really creepy!" Rachel said. "They're obviously responding to something. Something's coming that made them go silent. You know how all the animals go silent before a tornado or earthquake hits, right? Maybe they're like, fleeing a natural disaster?"

"Probably some good guy aliens are coming to save the day?" I proposed, deciding to take a page out of Cassie's book.

"Dad and his coworkers think it might be an invader worse than what we've seen," Marco said darkly. "The Nartec, Helmacrons, and the rest of them might just be small fish in a pond. I think they've gone silent because a-"

"Hey guys?" Cassie interrupted us softly. "We're here."

* * *

 **Who, and there it is, that concludes An Uncomfortable Road. Yeah, in this version the Nartec are aliens because of a story idea that I got involving the Skrit'Na. Don't worry though, I am not doing them 100% faithful to how they were in the books, consider this a sort of...ah, fanfiction redemption. Although if the merfolk are really** _that_ **intolerable, I'll just edit them out, just tell me in the comments. And so,** on **the next chapter, we finally encounter Elfangor himself!**

 _~ To flaks314: I'm sorry that I changed the chapter's name to "An Uncomfortable Road," but since the titular "Dying Star" wasn't in this chapter, I found that the current chapter name suited the chapter better. Thanks for reading to the end of this, farewell and 'till we meet again!_

 _~ To Reddit user u/BPRoberts for spotting some mistakes that were in this chapter when published._


	4. Interlude 1, The Next Obstacle

**Who's there? Stay back!**

...!

 **Oh, it's you. You made it! Hurry, come close!**

...?

 **I think I can survive this, it's probably not as bad as it looks...** ** _yet_** **.**

...?

 **I've been travelling like this for...a while now. My progress has been abysmally slow.**

...!

 **Yes, not a moment too soon.**

...?

 **The Beast, the Beast was the one responsible for the sorry state I'm in.**

...

 **I've succeeded in my mission, I have it.**

...?

 **He's gone.**

...?

 **Yes, all of his kind on this planet have been vanquished as well.**

...

 **Save your emotions, there'll be another time. How does it look?**

...

 **Have you already used it?**

...?

 **Yes.**

...-

 **I don't think we have the numbers to do that.**

...?

 **A new enemy has arrived on this planet in force. They're far more powerful than the others, they're weaker than the Andalites, but they're strong enough.**

...?

 **I don't know who they are, I don't think the Andalites know either.**

...

 **No I don't, I'm sorry. We'll have to find the Last Recorder if we are to have any chance to beat them, and we can't do it alone.**

...?

 **...**

...

 **Unfortunately, it really seems that way, but we have to keep going as always, we'll get there.**

...?

 **We wait for as long as it takes for my body to heal to the point I can morph and travel. Then we make our next move from there.**

...

 **One step at a time.**

...?

 **Well, we just won't let them find us.**

...?

 **...If worse comes to worst and we can't hide, flee with the box as fast as you can.**

...!

 **If they do find us, you _must_ flee; the future of your race now rests on you. You cannot afford to risk it all on me!**

...?

 **No. It hasn't come to that yet...It hasn't come to that yet. For now, we have to wait. My fate isn't decided yet, but we can't afford to take any chances.**


	5. III The Dying Star, I

**And here we are, chapter 3! Since the last update I got 28 views in a single day, a new record! And this fic is at 361 views total. We are finally here, it's in this chapter that it finally happens; they meet the people who were talking in the interlude. Nasty business abounds though. As was clear in the prologue, the Andalite hero clearly didn't escape the battle in one piece.**

* * *

 _The Dying Star, I_

* * *

We entered the ghost town. It seemed like a pretty small place at first, but would probably have housed several hundred people when it was first built. Which would have been a _long_ time ago. A good part of the roofs had collapsed, and some walls had holes rotted through them that were big enough to step through.

It didn't look like anybody had been there for a while. There were some signs of vandalism, but even those looked ancient.

"Well, we're here. We saw the ghost town, I had fun, let's go home!" Marco said when we reached the first building.

"What?" Rachel said, raising an eyebrow at him. "Are you scared already?"

"No," Marco said, bursting into nervous laughter immediately after. "We just got here. I was just joking!"

Rachel just shook her head at him and continued walking.

We found what looked to have been the main road a few minutes later. There were two-story buildings on either side, with those characteristic wild-west signs mounted on the front walls. Most of them weren't readable anymore, but I could make out a dentist, a stable, and even a saloon.

The road itself looked more like an overgrown garden though.

"Add some more desert and less mountain and this place wouldn't look out of place in a Western," Marco whistled.

"So, guys, wanna explore the mineshaft?" Rachel suggested.

"Oooooh, count me in," Marco said, raising his hand.

"Su-" I agreed, or rather, tried to agree.

"No, we're fine here," Cassie said, speaking for both of us.

Did Rachel and Cassie plan this?

"Awesome! Let's go!" Rachel said, then my best friend and my cousin were off.

"Are we there yet?" Marco asked Rachel less than a second after walking away.

"No," she responded.

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"How about now?"

"No."

I took Cassie's hand again. She looked down at it and blushed a little.

"Hey Cassie?" I said.

"Yeah?"

"Nobody else is here, right?"

"Not recently. We're the first people here in a while."

"NO!" Rachel shouted at the top of her lungs in the distance.

"Uuuh, do you think we should keep my best friend from mauling yours?" Cassie asked.

I didn't need to think it over. My answer was brief; the judgment of an expert.

"Nah, they'll be fine."

We explored some more. Besides more abandoned buildings, we also met some local wildlife.

First, we came face to face with a deer and her fawn. Cassie slowly knelt down to try not to scare them, wearing this ridiculously cute smile. She was so focused on the deer that I don't think she'd even realized that she'd knelt down into mud specifically until they eventually ran off. She looked a little embarrassed about that afterward, as she failed to brush the mud off her pants.

A little later, she suddenly looked up and pointed at the sky. She said that she saw some sort of bird of prey fly over us, but I was too late to see it.

Finally, while we were going to where Cassie said the farmer's market was, we were blocked by a hornet's nest.

"Uh, we should probably leave those guys alone…" Cassie said.

"Yeah. So… should we turn back or head into that barn?"

"Actually, that's a granary."

"A granary?" I asked, in need of a vocabulary lesson. "That's the same thing right?"

"Almost. A granary is sort of like a storage barn, but for grains, like wheat or barley," Cassie explained.

As she talked, I was distracted by something oddly purple in the overgrowth a few yards behind her. "Wait, what's that?"

Cassie looked to see what I was looking at. "Huh. I don't know."

We walked over to get a closer look. It looked like a pile of broken purple crystals, with very sharp, jagged edges, spikes, and even some hooks. It might have actually been pretty, if it hadn't been covered with rotting flesh and a sickly red liquid. The stench it emitted was horrible.

"Ugh, is that blood?" I asked as I put my hand to my face.

"Yeah, it is."

"What kind of crystal is that, amethyst?" I asked nervously.

"I don't think so…" Cassie said with a strange voice, as if she had been possessed by curiosity. "What's strange is how this meat looks untouched… It had to have been out for several days already. Scavengers should have eaten it all by now…"

The crystals gave me a really bad feeling, even ignoring the rotting meat around it. A sense of _wrongness_ , like they weren't natural.

"I… think we should get out of here," I decided, gently pulling Cassie away from the crystals. "Let's go back to the others."

* * *

 _((Dad!)) Tobias said as he walked down a flight of stairs, leading into a room where a man soaked with dried blood lied on a table, recovering from his wounds and cradling a walking stick._

 _((What happened?)) the man said._

 _((A group of people entered the town. Two of them.))_

 _((What species?))_

 _((They're just regular humans from what I've seen. I don't think they're under a Controller's dominion, but I can't be too sure…)) Tobias said._

 _The man squinted at him for a second. ((You're hiding something, aren't you?))_

 _((Well… One of them's a friend I made a while back. He lives a few towns away from here, last I checked. His name's Jake. It looks like he's got a date with him.))_

 _((I think they'll both work,)) the man said after another pause._

 _((What? Are you serious?)) Tobias said with exasperation. ((We're going to use that on them? This soon after we got it back?))_

 _((It sounds like he's a worthy candidate, and we have to start somewhere. Besides, you've already used the box on yourself.))_

 _((We have no base, and they're on the other side of the town!)) Tobias insisted. ((We have no weapons, no supplies, we can't even give them properly functioning armor! How are we supposed to handle this?))_

 _((We'll start from scratch. It's not like we've never done that before. Besides, we're already in a better position then we were. Nobody even knows we're here, much less –))_

 _Both froze as they heard people walk up to the house._

 _((Oh clarjiatz,)) Tobias's father cursed in his own language. ((That's not your friend is it?))_

 _((No, it can't be them!)) Tobias said desperately with gritted teeth as they opened the door. ((They must have been hiding in the mines when I came back!))_

 _Tobias's father then held out a blue cube. Tobias' eyes widened, then he nodded bitterly. He took the cube and soundlessly stepped behind the open door. Once he was positioned so that he would be hidden, Tobias turned on his hologram to make himself invisible._

* * *

"Okay, those crystals are definitely dangerous," I noted as we walked past the body of a crow on our way back to the others.

It must have eaten some of the flesh around the pile of crystals we'd found, and swallowed some of the crystals as well. It looked like they'd spontaneously erupted from the bird's stomach not soon after. They looked less colorful and more translucent than the ones in the pile, but they had the same… wrong feel to them. And they smelled just as horrible.

"Hey Jake, look!" Cassie said as we passed through an alley a little later. She was pointing between two porches, at a pile of tree branches and dead leaves.

"Huh?"

Cassie walked over to the pile of dead plants and moved it to the side, revealing a patch of barren land with a scorch mark around it.

"Oh great," I said. "So someone _was_ here."

"By how long the plants have been here they're probably long gone, so it's nothing to worry abo-"

"Aaaaaaiiiiiii!" I heard a feminine scream in the distance.

"RACHEL!" Cassie shouted.

"MARCO!" I corrected, and just like that we broke into a sprint. We crossed the main road quickly and headed toward where the scream was.

"They're not too far off from the mines!" Cassie said as we sprinted.

We sprinted all the way over there, but stopped at the entrance to look around. The entrance was a square-shaped hole in the side of the mountain, with a cart track running out of it. There was a tree growing in front of the entrance, blocking our view inside.

"What on Earth are you doing here?!" we then heard Rachel ask someone from inside a building to the right of the mine entrance.

We sprinted inside, and quickly found Rachel and Marco in a room to our left.

"Rachel! Marco!" Cassie yelled worriedly. "Are you oka-AAaaaiii!"

I froze when I saw what scared her.

An adult man in a trench coat, covered in blankets, lying prone on a table, holding a walking stick. He was hurt, _bad_. Every inch of him that was visible was covered in blood. The only proof that he was alive was that his chest was moving.

"Jake?" a voice called out from behind us. I looked for its source; the space behind the door we'd entered through. There was nothing there at first, but then there was this shimmer, which quickly turned into a person.

"Tobias?"

I was startled by coughing from the man on the table. So he wasn't just alive, he was very much awake.

"Tobias?" Cassie asked, very confused. "What's going on? How did you just… appear?"

"Okay, I know you're freaking out," Tobias said in a soft voice. "But I can explain. I'll tell you everything."

"Ah, I see," the man spoke up in a weak voice, and smiled. His teeth were seemingly the only part of his body that wasn't covered in blood. "Are these the friends you told me about, son?"

"Wait, _son_?" I asked Tobias in shock. "This is your dad?"

Tobias' dad squinted at us. "Clearly there's a lot more about our family that you don't know about. I say it's time we get to know each other. Sit down, there's much to discuss."

* * *

 **So, that's that, Tobias and the other Animorph's lives are OVER! Goodbye to any semblance of normality they would have enjoyed. And by the way, please do tell me what you think, if you have any criticisms, please leave them in the comments.**


	6. IV The Dying Star, II

**6**

 **SURPRISE! Another chapter in the same month! The 6th chapter of Twilight of the Animorphs is finally here. Thank you all for faithfully following this story, this story now has at this time 432 views, quite the slowdown there. I'm honestly shocked how few new readers I got when I posted the last chapter.**

 **As always credit goes to flaks314 for doing a wonderful job at editing this fic to perfection.**

 **Jake, Rachel, Marco, and Cassie have left their summer camp and hiked to a ghost town without the councilor's knowledge or permission. To their surprise, they meet Tobias, a long lost friend of Jake's, and his father. Both Tobias and his father will forever change their world's fate, though whether or not it's for the better remains to be seen.**

* * *

 _The Dying Star II_

* * *

"I know you have a lot of questions," Tobias said as he stood leaning against the wall. "But please let me try to explain first, or the answers aren't going to make a lot of sense."

He looked _way_ too casual. Like, he was uncomfortable, sure, but… He has his dad lying on a table in a ghost town in the middle of nowhere, looking like he should have died days ago, and just _appeared_ out of thin air. He looked like this was normal for him.

It wasn't even 2 minutes since we saw Tobias' dad, and already this day had gotten so strange. A lot of questions didn't even begin to cover it.

"So you were an alien the whole time?" Marco asked in a hostile tone of voice.

"Yes, er, no, it's… complicated," Tobias said, struggling to explain. "You see, I'm a-"

"You're half right about us being aliens," Tobias' dad interrupted. "I am a member of an extraterrestrial race known as Andalites. We come in peace."

At first I thought he was joking, even despite Tobias materializing out of thin air. But he looked dead serious.

Tobias looked at his dad with a blatant 'are you kidding me?' face.

"What? Dad, are you ser-"

"Yes, Tobias, I am," he replied, looking at Tobias with a knowing stare. "We have to tell them."

Tobias looked back and forth between his dad and us a few times. Then he sighed, nodded, and seemed to relax a little.

"As I said, I am an Andalite. My name is Elfangor. I may look human right now, but we Andalites have an ability unique amongst our species, one that allows us to travel most places unnoticed. We have the power to morph into other organisms."

"Morph?" Rachel asked incredulously. "As in _transform_? _Shapeshift_?"

"Yes, exactly," Elfangor continued. "We also use this power to fight our mortal enemies. Extraterrestrial nations of great power, using their might to seize what never belonged to them, growing fat off the suffering of others… of innocents."

"Like all those other aliens that are on Earth?" I asked, eyeing the door.

"Yes. All of them came here to claim this planet as their own, but humanity has put up an amazing resistance. All of those invasions have ground to a halt." Elfangor looked up to the ceiling and in a wistful voice remarked, "If left alone long enough, I have no doubt you would have removed or pacified all of the invaders in less than six years."

He coughed, holding his hand in front of his mouth.

"We Andalites also use the ability to morph to… take sanctioned vacations from the war, whether to recover from our injuries or get away from the stress of battle. Once upon a time, Earth was quite a popular place for Andalites to rest, particularly America. Most of us spend years at a time in morph on this world."

Tobias held his left arm at the elbow and looked down, like he was recalling a memory that he clearly wanted to forget.

"I was on one such vacation for five years when I met Tobias' mother, Loren." Elfangor continued, closing his eyes as he recalled fond memories. "I basically fell in love and… well, while Andalites marrying other species while in morph while isn't stigmatized, it is rather frowned upon due to our monogamous nature. An Andalite's heart will only ever belong to one, and mine was owned by a human. Because of Loren, it will never belong to another Andalite."

"Me, my brother, and my mom worked together with them for a while," Tobias said, turning away from us. "I… had many Andalite friends, a number of them Elfangor's relatives. They all… accepted me. Even after my mom and… brother passed on, and the rest of the Andalites that were on Earth were… Dad's the only one left."

"Okay, I'm sorry for your loss," Marco said. He was clearly only talking to Tobias, because he seemed to make a point of turning to Elfangor before he continued. "Don't you Andalites have your own resorts or something to go to? In case you haven't noticed, we're not exactly in need of any more aliens to come here acting like they own the place."

"I'm pretty sure he noticed, Marco," Rachel said irritably. "Just look at him!"

"Y-yeah, shouldn't we go get help or something…?" Cassie tried. "He looks pretty bad…"

"Our enemies are many, widespread, and _relentless_ ," mostly ignoring Cassie. "They constantly send assassins to take us while we sleep and when we're young. They've grown in number to the point that not even our homeworld is safe. The safest place for us is inside our Dome Ships, but there are not enough to house us all, and they take a lot of resources to build. Andalites are also naturally claustrophobic, so even if we would have enough of them, they would not be a permanent solution. As such, using our morphing technology to pretend to be a member of an alien society has become very common."

"So… what?" Marco asked. "You're saying you took a vacation on a planet that has half a dozen alien invasions going on last time we checked? You really expect us to believe that?"

He looked ready to bolt back to the camp and call in an airstrike on Elfangor or something the minute he'd get to a phone. Rachel seemed to be taking his side.

I felt Cassie take my hand from behind me. She was shivering. I'm not sure whether she believed Elfangor or not, but either way, she didn't like where the conversation was going.

To be honest, I'm not sure what I was thinking at the time, either. But I was definitely ready to run if it came down to it.

Tobias blocked the door before anyone moved, though, gesturing for us to calm down. "Th-this planet was far safer when w- they first started coming here. They were blindsided, just like we were. But they're _helping_ us. Humanity doesn't even know about some of the invasions. Last time we checked, there are ei- no, seven invasions going on right now."

"There were two hidden invasion forces attacking your world," Elfangor said. "The first were the Mercora. A race of giant crab-like creatures that had an army of machines that they were going to deploy. These war machines would have been controlled from deep within their secret stronghold in the wilds of the US. We crushed their fortress just two weeks ago."

Elfangor took some time to catch his breath, then he looked at my best friend. "Marco, Tobias told me your father works at the ETS. Two weeks ago, did he speak of _any_ unexplained explosions in Wyoming?"

Marco glanced down as he recalled, then his eyes widened. "That was _you_?"

Elfangor nodded. "Yes. But very shortly after we eliminated the Mercora, we discovered the presence of the second secret invasion."

"Most of the aliens invading are actually low on the galactic food chain. They're basically six schools of small fish surrounded by even smaller fish in an isolated pond," Tobias said. "The Mercora, Helmacrons, Nartec, and others were minor threats, but these guys? Not minor… not minor at all."

"We had six invasions left to deal with, taking down the biggest threats first," Elfangor said. "After the Mercora were gone, we were discussing how to deal with the Nartec, an ever-controversial topic. We were on our way to their stronghold when we were ambushed."

He let out a shuddering sigh and put his hand to his gut, grimacing.

"We had not encountered their species before. But they're dangerous, several orders of magnitude more dangerous and powerful than _anything_ mankind has encountered so far. I only barely managed to rally my people for a counterattack. They were led by another Andalite, by the name of Alloran. He had disappeared some sixty years ago, along with his warship, the Ascalin. We found the wreckage sixteen years later, and the Ascalin was declared lost with all hands. However, Alloran was never seen again… until the ambush. We were whittled down until I was all that remained. The battle was close, but Visser Three gained the upper hand, and I had no choice but to flee."

Rachel shook her head in confusion. "Visser Three? I thought you were talking about Alloran, who's Visser Three?"/

"Visser Three is the identity of the one who led the attack," Elfangor elaborated cryptically. "It seems that Alloran had been taken over by a sentient alien parasite, who called himself Visser Three. It was ultimately this parasite which led the ambush. The rest of the ambush consisted of a number of other species, likely all being controlled by these parasites. There were centipede-like creatures that operated their artillery and vehicles, and seven-foot tall bipedal lizard-like creatures covered in blades. But above all, under their command they had humans, scores and scores of humans. They outnumbered the other species ten to one."

I was shocked, so shocked I couldn't speak for a few seconds. I assume the same went for the others, because they were also quiet. I was the first to speak up again.

"S-so… these things are invading and _nobody_ even knows about it?" I asked.

"Nobody but _us_ ," Elfangor said. "We do not know what they call themselves, but the rest of us Andalites do not even know they exist, much less that they're here."

"Visser Three…" I thought to myself out loud. "What does that number mean?"

"It could mean _anything_ ," Tobias said, tapping his foot on the floor. "He could be the third highest ranking warlord. Vissers could be candidates for an even higher title. Hell, the three in his name might be like Casimir the Third and he's a prince, or king, or whatever. We have no idea."

"Whatever these parasites are, they're a serious threat," Tobias' dad said.

"If they could take out the Andalites on Earth, then they're too much even for the ETCS to prevail against them," Tobias said.

"If not even the ETCS can take them out, then what are we supposed to do?" I said.

Tobias shifted on his feet and elected to move away from the door and look out the window. _So he was still hiding something? Great_.

"Andalites are not born with our morphing ability," Elfangor continued a few seconds later. "Instead, it is given to our children at a very young age. Before we were ambushed by the Controllers, we had finished a device that would be able to give the power to humans."

"What?" I asked. "You're giving us the power?"

"Yes. It comes with other benefits as well. You will be able to sense your planet's magnetic field, and will be able to tell time without a watch. You also get some small-scale regeneration in your true forms, and you will be able to morph faster than any Andalite could hope to. You will not be able to go into shock and will be given a superhuman tolerance to pain, and every time you morph you will be fully healed."

"Fully healed? _Really_?" Marco asked skeptically. "Then why didn't you do that to recover?"

"When Alloran disappeared, he was transporting a weapon discovered in the ruins of an unknown alien civilization. Dubbed The Crystallizer, the weapon was being moved to be studied and to keep it from falling into enemy hands. This weapon was one that…" Elfangor held his hand over his gut and grimaced. "… that inserted jagged purple crystals into you. They latch on to your flesh, and then grow until they burst out and make air contact, often causing lethal damage. Morphing does not heal it, because they grow from my own flesh."

He looked at us with a jaded stare, "I'm sure you must have found some of these crystals that my son removed from me."

 _Those crystals came from him_? I gagged at the thought of that sickly flesh having been part of the person I was talking to.

"And in case you don't believe us about the pain tolerance, some of those crystals are still inside my dad's gut. He would be screaming and flailing uncontrollably right now if he were a normal human." Tobias said while grasping and ungrasping his fingers.

"Before I fled the battle, the weapon was destroyed," Elfangor said. "However, there was more than one on the Ascalin, and I do not know how many more the Controllers made operational. But on top of morphing, getting the morphing power will also allow you to use any of our technology."

Elfangor then turned to face his son.

"Tobias, little featherhead. The Cube, if you will."

"Of course," he said, then he put his hand to his left pocket and pulled out a blue cube and started walking towards us.

"Now, it is here and now that you decide," Elfangor said. "If you touch the cube, you will have the power to morph, and many others besides that, and with it the strength to take down the Controllers. But if you choose not to take the power, then Tobias will erase your memories of this encounter, and you will return to whence you came, completely unaware of all that I have divulged to you."

"H-hang on, when you said you were giving 'us' the power you were talking about the four of us specifically?" Cassie asked, with a tone that seemed equally scared and excited. "I thought you meant humanity as a whole…!"

"Tobias has already received the power, and others besides yourself will, but not all" Elfangor said in a soft whisper as Tobias held out the cube in front of him. "What is your decision?"

I was stunned into silence, it was just so… _real_. You know; crazy, but not the _impossible_ crazy.

The ability to morph into animals? That would be the thrill of a lifetime! But on the other hand, if we were to accept, we'd have to fend off those parasites.

No matter what I and anyone else around me chose that day, our fate had been forever changed. It seemed so simple back then, looking at our situation. Even what Tobias' father told us was straightforward compared to the convoluted mess we're in right now. No matter what we would answer, yes or no, it was clear that we could not go back from this decision. On that day, we took our path, made our choice, and forever changed the fate of our world, and that of many countless other worlds unknown.


	7. V The Dying Star, III

**7**

 **As of posting this chapter, this tale has 600 views, and it got 76 views in a single day when the last chapter was uploaded, a new record!**

 **Jake and the others have heard Tobias and Elfangor's story, and now that they understand the true gravity of the threat. The greatly weakened but still mighty Elfangor offers the children the chance to fight on in the stead of his vanquished Andalite comrades. But Tobias and Elfangor do not wish to delay, they don't know how much time they have, the longer they linger, the greater the chance that their time being cut short grows.**

* * *

 _The Dying Star III_

* * *

"What is your decision?" Elfangor's question repeated in my head.

The ability to morph into animals, in return for fighting on the front lines of humanity's defense against the worst aliens that have tried to invade us yet. Or walk away, and hope someone else fights for us instead.

If Elfangor is even telling the whole truth, that is.

We'd been quiet for what had seemed like forever when Marco broke the silence.

"No," he said in a way that did not warrant debate.

Elfangor looked at him disappointedly, but didn't object outright. He really was leaving it up to us, I guess – for all we knew he'd zap us if we'd say no rather than just erase our memories somehow.

Tobias wasn't as easily swayed, though. "If you don't trust Dad, I understand. But at least trust _me_. I've already received the power myself."

" _No_ ," Marco repeated, adamant. "Look, Tobias, I trust you, but how do I know Elfangor isn't just tricking us all? You included? Do you have _any_ tangible proof that your dad can be trusted?"

"I've _already_ used it," Tobias said. "As a matter of fact, I've flown all the way here as a red-tailed hawk."

"The box has no negative side effects," Elfangor said. "It is a special model that was created _just_ for humans, for this exact situation."

Marco was silent, and then he looked up, conflicted.

"I'm sorry, but the answer is still no," he eventually said. "Look, turning into animals; it sounds awesome. I'll be able to actually fly under my own power!" Marco gushed for a few seconds.

"But you're not asking us to fly free as any bird out there, you're asking us to fight a _war_ ," he continued. "One we have to keep secret. One that we have no way of knowing if we'd even win! And how _do_ we win? We have nothing, we don't know what their power structure looks like. We don't know how tough these aliens are. We don't know how many humans they control, we don't even have any idea where they are! We're literally going into this blind!" Marco said, expressing himself with his hands.

"And I would love to do that, I really do. I can't stand by and watch as alien warmongers choose to keep carving up humanity and our world like the Thanksgiving Turkey. But my dad's with the _ETS_ , you can't get into that by being ignorant of your surroundings. Sooner or later he'll notice something's up."

"Then I'll cover for you," Tobias said, putting his hand on my best friend's shoulder. "And you won't be going in completely blind. Dad placed a tracker on one of the attackers, a giant worm. It should still be in his stomach. The data is being transmitted and recorded at… a location I'm not allowed to disclose. But I'll go there, and retrieve the data."

"I'll do it."

Everyone turned to where the words came from.

"Cassie?" I asked, as she stepped forward to Tobias, who was holding the box.

"Give me the power. _Someone_ has to fight back. If the Controllers win, then we're done for."

She put her hand out, but then she hesitated, unsure of what to do exactly.

"Simply touch one side with the palm of your hand, and focus on receiving the power," Elfangor reassured her.

"Be warned though, it will tingle a little bit," Tobias said. "And your hand will be stuck to it for thirty seconds and be a little numb for a while."

So there _are_ side effects. Made me wonder what else they left out so far.

But Cassie didn't hesitate further. When she touched the box, a sort of… _paste_ oozed up and enveloped her hand. Her arm started twitching for a few moments, then stopped. Marco let out a quiet noise of worry.

"This does tingle," Cassie murmured in fascination.

We then waited, until…

"It is done," Tobias said solemnly.

Cassie then lifted her right hand and made a fist, clenching and unclenching her fingers. The blue-gray paste receded into tiny crevices that covered the surface of the cube.

"Huh, that's odd," Cassie said in confusion.

 _Oh no._

"What is it?" Tobias asked, concerned.

"You said my hand was supposed to feel numb, right? It doesn't feel numb at all."

Tobias looked back at her wide-eyed, seemingly unsure what to say. Even Elfangor seemed shocked. He opened his mouth to try to say something a few times, but failed and closed it again.

"What?" Rachel asked, concerned for her friend. "Did something go wrong? Is she okay?"

"Cassie…" Elfangor finally said. "You are something _very_ special, the lack of numbness in your hand indicates that you're an… _Estreen_. A more powerful morpher than even normal humans with the gift. A supermorpher, so to speak. You will have more control over the morphing process than any of your friends, and will be able to heal more rapidly than anything else on this planet."

I sighed in relief.

"What just happened to you, was literally a one in _ten thousand_ chance," Tobias added in astonishment.

"One in ten thousand," Marco repeated distrustfully. "Or did you just modify the box so it would do something different?"

"No," Tobias said. "The cube's settings cannot be altered, this was pure luck."

Elfangor turned to the rest of us expectantly. "First Tobias, now Cassie. Will any more of you step forward?"

I was still somewhat indecisive. Rachel stepped up before I could answer.

"Aaah crap, now that Cassie's in this, I can't just back out. I'm in," Rachel said. She immediately stepped forward and put her hand on the cube. Her arm got jittery when the paste touched her, just like Cassie's had. "Yow, that's…something…"

Her arm stopped twitching after a few seconds. The half-minute then came, as the wind picked up outside.

"It is do-" Tobias said, but before he could finish, Rachel removed her right arm and made a T-pose. "All right, who's bad?" Rachel exclaimed victoriously, without realizing that the cube was still stuck to her until it hit the ground. She looked at the box and immediately realized what had happened, then blushed, embarrassed. My cousin leaned down and gave it back to Tobias before walking away, clenching and unclenching her arm.

"Now there are three," Elfangor said. "Marco, are you still adamant about not receiving the power?"

"I… I'm…" My best friend said, rather conflicted. "I'm sorry, but I _won't_ touch the cube."

"There's something else is there?" Elfangor asked gently.

Marco swallowed, before speaking up. "If I… If I _choose_ to fight, but _not_ get the morphing power here, will I be able to decide to get the power later on?"

Tobias' father nodded, "Yes, you can acquire the power at any time. My son will accompany you and aid you in your journey, including holding the cube. But the sooner, the better."

"Wait, you're not coming with us?" Cassie asked.

Elfangor shook his head. "No, I'm sorry, but I cannot. Though I will survive, the injuries I have sustained have crippled me. I can no longer fight."

 _Yeah, no kidding_ , I thought. He looked as if he should have died several days ago. Then again, if it wasn't for those weird crystals, would the healing abilities that come with morphing really have healed all _that_?

"I must go to a specially made sanctuary to heal," Elfangor elaborated. "I will join you in your fight when I recover, but this will take years. My son will escort me to the sanctuary a couple days from now, and bring some supplies back to you when he returns."

"This is… It's just too _serious_ ," Marco exclaimed. "I've seen how often Dad comes home practically yanking what remains of his hair out of his head. I don't want to see him like that anymore, please, just…don't erase my memory."

Elfangor looked at Marco with a grave expression. "This is a serious handicap you're putting on yourself. Are you _absolutely sure_ you want to fight this way? Keep in mind this is your last chance to back out and lead a normal life, but this is also your choice, and your choice alone. However, until you receive the morphing power, you cannot take any active roles in combat or recon, and must be extra careful to stay hidden."

"This is my choice," Marco repeated. "I will fight, but I _will not_ get the power to morph. I mean, not yet. So please, don't erase my memory."

Tobias' dad nodded. "As you wish. Considering your previous experiences with alien life, I understand why you would not trust me so easily. It is a wise decision, however unnecessary a reaction that is to my kind. I will let you go, but please do not wait around too long."

Marco just nodded.

He now looked at me, "Jake, what is your decision?"

"Yes," I said in a way that dispelled any ambiguity. It was sort of instinctive, like I wasn't even sure if I'd made up my mind yet when I said it. But I guess I'm like that. If someone puts me on the spot, I don't waste time answering.

Elfangor's eyes widened, two light dots in a sea of red. "You –" Elfangor said before getting into a nasty coughing fit. It was a long time before he stopped. "You accept?" he asked, tears in his eyes. I guess he wasn't expecting me to.

"Yes, I'll take the power," I said, turning towards Tobias. "They'll come for all of us eventually, there's nothing stopping that. Nothing but us."

"From the moment he saw you, my son _knew_ you were something special," Elfangor said. "It is not very apparent now, and it took me some time, but I, too, can see it now. You will make a fine leader."

"Oh my gosh," Tobias said in exasperation. "I didn't see that last part in him, Dad!"

"Then what _did_ you see?" he asked quizzingly with a smile on his face.

"I saw… _something_ ," Tobias said in confusion. "I can't put my finger on what it was, but… the best I can describe it is as a sort of… _greatness_. But your point still stands, Dad."

Tobias then extended his arm, the cube still in his hand. I walked a couple of steps towards him and touched it.

The paste rose from the crevices and covered my hand, glueing me to the box. Two seconds in, my right arm spasmed for a moment, just like what happened with the others. It made it feel like pop rocks feel in your mouth at first, but then it went completely numb. I also felt… strange in my chest and head while it was happening, but that feeling abruptly stopped after a little while.

"It is done," Tobias said. The box and my hand became unfused with each other, but my entire right arm remained completely numb.

"Now, you must go!" Elfangor said desperately. "Flee, return to where you came from!"

"What?" Rachel said. "But we literally just –"

"There's a chance that my father may have been followed," Tobias interrupted. "The longer we remain here, the greater the chance that the Controllers will find their way here and track you down!"

"What?!" Rachel demanded angrily. "Why didn't you tell us before now?"

"Because they didn't want to rush us into this decision," Cassie said, trying to defuse the situation.

"Ensuring that the battle for this planet is not lost is our absolute _top_ priority," Elfangor said firmly. "There are two relics on this Earth that will turn the tide irrevocably to the enemy's favor, one is The Last Recorder, the container of an archive of ancient information millions of years old, and possibly including the identity of the Controllers and each of their alien hosts. The second is the cube that my son now carries. These are the conditions of our defeat: the Controllers are not stopped, they seize the Recorder, or they take the Cube. If any one of those things happen, then both of our kinds are truly finished."

"WAIT! EVERYONE QUIET!" Tobias suddenly exclaimed, holding his hand up. He looked desperate.

"Oh no…" he said after listening intently for a few seconds. I looked to Elfangor and saw the same expression of fear.

"Children, hide in the mineshaft, _now_!" Elfangor said.

"What are yo-" Marco said.

"There's no time, _they're coming_!" Tobias said urgently before running out the door, taking the box with him.

"Who's co-?" Rachel tried to ask Elfangor.

"Get. To. The. Mine. NOW!" he shouted at us with a strength I didn't know he had. But his voice wasn't the only thing that spurred us to go there that day. One look at his face was all it took to know that if we wanted to keep on living, we had to obey.

"Everyone, we gotta move," I said before following Tobias, and we all broke into a sprint, navigating through the bank's doors to get outside. Tobias was already at the mine entrance when we emerged, waving us forward. Rachel and I were the first to get to him, with Marco following close behind. Cassie was the last to get there, and she only just made it in time. Just as she went past the tree in front of the entrance, I heard a sound like a bomb exploding in the distance.

"Oh crap, is that a ballistic missile?" Marco asked in fear.

"Worse…" Tobias quietly said in hollow despair. He took his right index finger and rubbed it violently on the palm of his left hand, then he put his left hand to the ground and I briefly saw a flash of rainbow light.

"Whoa, what was that?" Rachel asked.

I looked outside to see that the world was now slightly distorted.

"We're invisible now," Tobias said. "They can't hurt us here."

 _They?_ I thought. Just when I opened my mouth to ask Tobias who he was talking about I saw something small, dark, and fast crash into the roof of the building we were just in. We flinched, and everyone was quiet.

We waited a few seconds before I spoke up.

"Why didn't i-" was all I could get out before I heard a loud, hateful, and inhumanly angry voice shout from all the way inside the place where Elfangor was.

"DID YOU THINK YOU COULD HIDE?!"

* * *

 **And thank you for reading this chapter to its end! As always the ever accommodating flaks314 has edited this chapter so it would have the most authentic Animorphs feel possible! In the next chapter, one of the controllers has found Elfangor and has him pinned, it seems this is the end for the Andalite warrior, but Tobias has a trick up his sleeve, one that he must time right in order to prevail against his father's assailant.**


	8. VI The Dying Star, IV

**The children find that a straggler from Elfangor's previous battle has followed him to his hiding spot. He crashes into the bank, roaring his challenge to the Andalite and reengaging combat, and with his father's life on the line, Tobias struggles to give Elfangor the advantage he needs in order to survive his monstrous assailant.**

* * *

 _The Dying Star IV_

* * *

"DID YOU THINK YOU COULD HIDE?!" A voice exclaimed from inside the bank. It was definitely not Elfangor's.

"Oh crap… Is that a Controller?" Rachel asked Tobias in a concerned voice.

"Maybe. I… I don't know, I've never even –"

Tobias was unable to finish before Elfangor was thrown through the walls of the bank. He rolled as he landed and stopped several dozen feet away.

"Father!" Tobias cried out fearfully, reflexively reaching forward. He caught himself just before his hand went past the barrier.

We looked at the hole to see his attacker walk out. It was human, wearing what looked to be a black jumpsuit… except even from this distance I could see that it… _wasn't_. Many parts of his body had mechanical replacements, including… a tail? I thought I was seeing things at first, but it was hard to miss after he stepped out of the hole. It was longer than his entire body! And, mind you, it wasn't a tail like a cat's or a dog's. It had a blade at the end of it.

"You… you… YOU ABOMINATION!" the… _thing_ screamed with rage as he ran over to Elfangor.

While all my normal friends and I could do was hope that the new subject of our nightmares wouldn't spot us through the invisibility field somehow, Tobias was desperately searching through his bag. He picked up a bunch objects that I didn't recognize, though some of them were obviously alien weapons. He settled on something that looked like a pistol with a long barrel covered in some kind of pods, and aimed it at the Controller.

Meanwhile, Elfangor was actually getting up somehow. That heightened pain tolerance is no joke. Just as he did though, the Controller reached him and pushed him back on the ground, then started pounding on his head.

I winced. Not only could I hear him screaming in fury, but I heard every metallic punch connect with his head from all the way over here.

I heard Tobias let out a whisper that I almost didn't catch. "No," he said before putting the weapon he had on the ground and continuing to desperately rummage through his bag.

"WHY AREN'T YOU SCREAMING?!" the monster shrieked in fury before stopping his assault and grabbing him by the collar. "Come on, throw me your bones. Die screaming, just like your friends!"

At the last word the freak threw Elfangor.

"Aaaaaargh!" Tobias' father shouted. He sailed until he hit a tree so hard the impact left a dent in it and snapped off a thick branch.

Then he stopped moving. His head lolled to the side and faced us. His eyes were lifeless.

"No…" Cassie said, her hands over her mouth. Everyone winced in pain.

Rachel took her friend in her arms to comfort her. "It'll be okay, it'll be okay," she reassured her. "It's just like Tobias said, he can't hurt us here!"

If we hadn't listened… If we went for the mineshaft just five seconds later…

"How disappointing," the monster said with clenched teeth. "But… just to be absolutely sure…" It raised its tail blade to the point where it looked like a scorpion. He slowly walked over to Elfangor, partially crouched down, arms forward, hands open.

I looked one last time at Tobias' father for signs of movement, but he didn't move a muscle.

"I'm sorry, but –" I said before noticing what was now in his gloved hand.

A crystal, a long jagged _purple_ crystal.

"Wait," I said hurriedly. "I don't think he's out yet, Elfangor's got a crystal!" I said.

"A _what_?" Rachel asked.

"Yes, Jake's right, there's a Critaggium Crystal in his hand!" Tobias said, excited and hopeful.

"How is the crystal not mauling his hand right now?" Marco whispered.

"Apparently, it has to touch a living creature with nothing in between in order to activate," Tobias explained. "Dad still has a chance!"

"A snowball's chance in Hell more like!" Marco said fearfully. "Look at him, how much of those superhuman abilities do you think he has left? Even though that's not his true form, for all intents and purposes your dad's a regular human, _right_?"

Tobias opened his mouth, before closing it again. He was speechless for a while. "Well… My dad can play dead like no one else," he said eventually, while looking forward at the fight grimly.

Marco didn't know what to say to that.

The monster picked up Elfangor by his collar, then raised him to the air, his lifeless expression passing out of view. I saw the monstrosity move its tail out to the side, then it started swinging like an arm using a lasso. Part of his tail seemingly became loose and started swinging faster and faster, so fast that it became a blur. Then the cyborg's tail changed positions again, about to move to cut off his head.

Then like lightning, Elfangor struck!

"Haaaah!" With a shout Elfangor thrust the crystal towards the tail that was moving to cut off his head at the exact same time. It happened in a blur at breakneck speed.

"AaaaaAaAaAaAaARGH!" the cyborg let out a terrifying sound of pure agony that couldn't possibly have come from the throat of a human. We all covered our ears in pain at the deafening roar. I glanced at Tobias to see his expression unchanged, staring stoically at the encounter with a subdued expression of hope.

The tail retracted and the tip of it convulsed in pain. Tobias' dad was untouched!

"Yes!" I silently cheered behind my teeth.

Elfangor was quick to act, again thrusting the crystal. He hit the tail again, closer to the base this time.

AaaaaAaAAAAGRRRGH!" the Controller shouted as he let go of Tobias' father and sunk to his knees.

Elfangor thrust again, piercing the leg above the knee. Just as he did, purple crystals began to emerge from the monstrosity's tail. It looked so… _wrong_ , it made me want to puke!

The cyborg retaliated with its bare hands, swinging at him lightning quick. But Elfangor dodged.

"Tobias, you said it should only do that to _flesh_!" Marco accused.

"It does, but I've never seen… this thing before! The tail has to be partly organic!"

"So a _mutant_ cyborg?" Marco asked incredulously.

The crystals grew to the point where the monster's tail fell off at the tip, and close to the base where he was stabbed a second time. The cyborg was now at a major disadvantage. His tail was practically gone, only a foot of it was left. Still, he powered through the pain and kept trying to grab Elfangor with his lightning quick hands.

Not quick enough, though, and his amputation put him off balance. Several times a second the arms swung for him, but he dodged them every time.

"Oh my God, look at him _go_!" Rachel laughed with a wide smile on her face, rightfully impressed with the superhuman dodging she was witnessing.

Nevertheless, the cyborg's fists were moving faster. The near-misses became more frequent and more narrow.

Then the cyborg suddenly kicked out with his uninjured leg. Elfangor stabbed with the crystal again in response, piercing the cyborg's knee. But it wasn't enough. He hit Elfangor right in the gut where his injury was. He jumped back several feet.

We all winced. I saw Elfangor vomit a pint of red blood out of his mouth and nose. He barely managed to land on his feet. Then he leaned down, cradling his gut. Elfangor then threw away the shard. It landed on the other side of the bank.

"Well, guess I hit a weak spot!" the cyborg laughed mockingly. "It's dangerous to go alone!" he said in a fake, condescending old-man's voice, as he limped over to where Tobias' dad was. "Take THIS!" he suddenly shouted before smashing his hand on his left collarbone. I heard it shatter from all the way out here. Elfangor's fell to his knees, pale-faced.

"Why you-!" I moved forward in fury, automatically leaning down to pick up Tobias' gun. I took aim but before I could pull the trigger…

"Jake, no!" he said, holding me back, lowering my arm.

"Let go of me!" I practically shouted.

"That gun shoots homing missiles, you'll kill them both!"

I stopped resisting. All I could do was stare at the brutality unfolding, powerless to do anything. I heard Tobias continue to desperately rummage through his bag.

 _How can we fight that? What can we do to fight that?!_

"For a cripple, you put up an amazing fight," the monster said as he limped over to where Elfangor was. "Even using our own weapons against us."

"So, it _is_ a controller," Marco whispered.

"You were cunning, the deadliest adversary I've yet to fight. But all things come to an end, even you, your death is _here_ and _now_."

"This… isn't over… abomination," Elfangor managed to gasp out.

"This, no," the cyborg agreed with Elfangor as its hand reached out for him. "This is just the beginning. But your life is _done_."

Then, impossibly, I saw Elfangor summon one last vestige of strength and jump to the monster's side, his right arm hanging limply. He extended his left arm, and tendrils came out of it. Elfangor smashed his left fist in the back of the cyborg's head, it went to its knees, stunned.

I saw Elfangor grab both of his arms, gritting through the pain, and put them behind his attacker's back. The tendrils wrapped around the cyborg's arms, thickening into alien ropes that tied the cyborg's arms behind his back.

"You think these binds can hold me?" The cyborg said cockily, trying to tear his arms free.

"No," Elfangor said with finality. "They can't."

The tendrils then disconnected from Elfangor's arm, and he jumped forward on to the cyborg's back and put his left arm over him. The cyborg tried to shake the Andalite off, but combined with his injured legs, he was truly immobilized. Tobias' father then turned to the mineshaft.

"Tobias, the rocket!" he cried at the top of his lungs.

 _What?_ I thought in disbelief, then I looked to the rocket launcher on the floor.

"No…" Tobias said in despair and horror. He had an expression on his face that indicated his worst nightmare was coming true "Not you… too…"

My eyes widened in horror at what was going to happen.

"You're not the only one?!" The cyborg said in anger, I heard Tobias pick up the rocket launcher and aim it at the both of them.

"Where is it?!" It shrieked in anger, then it's eyes locked on to the mineshaft.

"FIRE!" Elfangor repeated. "OPEN FIRE!"

The cyborg's eyes locked on to us, then widened in horror and he struggled even harder to break free. "What?! You're _insane_! You'll kill us both!"

Tobias' gun made a beep noise, and then his voice was… somehow in our heads.

((I love you, Dad.))

"No… NOOO!" The cyborg cried out, the bindings beginning to snap.

Then the rocket was launched. Elfangor then loosened his grip, then kick jumped off of his attacker's shoulders behind him.

The cyborg broke free, but at the exact moment he did the rocket reached its target and exploded just below his neck.

It was the loudest thing I've ever heard. The cyborg was consumed in fire and smoke in an instant, and a massive cloud of dust was kicked up. I saw dark bits raining down from the sky a second later, then saw something large land close to us.

It was his skull. The jaw was gone, but some metal bits were still attached to it, including steel teeth.

The cloak deactivated and Tobias immediately ran to where his father was.

"Tobias!" I called out to him, giving chase. The others followed me.

We ran for what felt like forever, but it was only half a minute. As we got closer to the blast zone, we heard our footsteps fall on what could only be described as scorched earth. It crunched like stepping on broken glass. When I eventually caught up to Tobias, his father was on his back, held in his son's arms. Somehow still alive.

"What was that… thing?" Marco asked him.

"That… was…" he started, struggling to get it out. "… a remnant Mercora cyborg, created as living war machines for their army. I thought we had destroyed them all, but that one must have survived, was repaired… infested and then… tracked me here."

He coughed. "Children, listen close… You must find… the Last Recorder… If you don't, then, it means, the end of all things."

Then he turned to Tobias. "My son… don't, let them go… don't you _ever_ … let them go," the Andalite said in a gasping voice.

"Dad!" Tobias said.

"The coordinates are… 40, 18'29.2… degrees North, and…160… West…"

 _Coordinates?_

"I love you my son," Elfangor barely managed to whisper before closing his eyes and laying his head on the grass.

Then he went still.

"No, no no no no!" Tobias said rapidly as he cradled his father. He held his hand, which was now limp.

"You can't fade here!" Tobias cried out in a piercing voice sharp with denial.

We all stood silently, not sure what to do.

"Get up! I said _get up_!" Tobias cried out desperately before putting the palm of his hand to his dad's chest. I heard a boom go off, as a light briefly shone underneath Tobias' hand. Tobias was trying to restart Elfangor's heartbeat.

He put his head to Elfangor's chest, listening.

His eyes narrowed. He shook his head and repeated the procedure.

"Come on, get up!" Tobias said more desperately.

 _Boom._

"This isn't your time to die. You said so yourself, father. _Get up_!"

 _Boom._

"Come on, we came so far!"

 _Boom._

 _Boom._

 _boom._

He kept going at it for several minutes, but it was no use. Elfangor's body spasmed less and less with each subsequent jolt, until eventually it stopped moving at all.

I felt like I should've said something, or helped him somehow, but what _could_ I have done or said? What do you say to someone who practically just had to shoot his dad with a rocket launcher?

Cassie figured it out eventually. She just walked forward and put her hand on his shoulder. He stopped, and sat like that for a while, letting his tears fall on his father's chest.

Tobias slowly rose to his feet and whispered in disbelief. "No… no… you can't… after everything…"

Tobias reared his head and let out a howl of despair and anguish to the sky.

He beat the ground, as tears came out of his eyes. "He's gone!"

Cassie, not knowing what else she can say, backed up to me.

Tobias pulled the trigger. The cyborg was dead, but… he's gone, Elfangor's _gone_.

"First mother, then the others, not you too! Anyone but _you_! How can I do this without you, Dad?!"

Cassie burst in tears and cried into my chest. I looked to Rachel and saw her barely holding back her own, but moved forward to hug Tobias. He didn't reject. Marco looked stunned, like he couldn't believe what he saw.

"Why? Why have we been denied _everything_? EVEN OUR RIGHT TO DIE IN PEACE?!" Tobias roared at the heavens before getting down on his knees, causing Rachel to back off. Right then, I heard a thunderclap in the distance.

Tobias looked up to the sky, at the clouds. The wind blew his hair.

"Their light…" Tobias said in a broken, hollow, and defeated voice. "Everyone's gone, they're all _gone_. Their light has sunken into the earth forever. I'm the only one left. Oh God, what have those monsters _done_? I'm _last remaining_ …" Tobias stopped in the middle of his sentence as if he couldn't go on.

"Tobias…" I said, kneeling down next to him, putting my hand on his shoulder. "I'm so sorry."

When I touched him, I was shocked at first because it was numb. Then I remembered; the effects of the cube won't wear off for several hours.

I then felt Cassie leave my embrace and walk over to Tobias on the scorched earth. She laid the cube down gently next to him, then backed away.

"He went down swinging," I heard Marco say. Tobias went completely still, not even his silent shuddering breaths could be heard. "Your father went down swinging Tobias, he took his killer with him. That's a better end than a lot of people had, and will have. Certainly better than my mom's." Marco finished, choking at the memory. Tobias nodded in acknowledgement.

His silence carried on for a long time. Eventually, Tobias took Elfangor's arms and crossed them over his chest.

"Go," he finally said.

"What?" I asked him.

"Go back to where you came from. A storm is coming… You'll get soaked…"

"Guys, he's right, we need to go," Rachel said, walking away. "We've been here too long, the councillors are probably turning the camp upside down looking for us."

I nodded, and took the first step toward, but just then Tobias spoke again.

"Jake," he said. I looked behind myself to see him staring at me.

"The last of the Andalites are gone from this world, excluding Visser Three," he continued, his voice clear and determined. "If their spirits are going to find any rest, then we _must_ take him down. With Elfangor gone, you're the leader now."

"Tobias…" I said. "I-"

"Go, commander," he said, his voice breaking again. "I'll remain here and… tend to the fallen, and make sure nobody else is coming. Go!"

* * *

And like that we were out of there. We ran. When we got to the outside of the ghost town I looked back in time to hear Tobias let out one more wail of grief to the heavens, far louder than before. I will never forget that howling voice carried by the wind.

We got to the upper trail we came from, and when we got to the woods around the camp it was beginning to rain. We avoided any serious punishments due to Marco saying that nothing bad happened. Yeah, right. The worst we got was a scolding.

We got through the rest of the camp day acting like it was any other. When the bus came to pick us up, we all boarded and spent the rest of the ride in a catatonic state.

It had sunk in for me then, we were alone. No Andalites, no human military, just four kids against the worst alien invasion we've ever suffered.

No, not just four of us. Tobias was on our side too, and he has a good amount of alien tech skill. Still, the nightmare had just begun, and it was clear then, that we weren't going to wake up for a very long time.

* * *

 **As always credit goes to flaks 314 for editing another chapter of this fanfiction. [EDIT: And for noticing a few inconsistencies in the chapter, this chapter has been edited for the sake of ensuring your reading experience is optimal.]**

 **And since the last chapter's been updated, there has been surprisingly few views, what happened guys? This is the longest one yet, please review, it gives me great motivation and helps fuel my fire, any review would be nice!**


	9. VII Lingering

**Hey, I'm back with a vengeance!**

 **This fic is getting new views, but we still haven't surpassed the 76 views in a single day record, as a matter of fact, when I posted the chapter 6, there were only 35 views that day! I'm not complaining, but after the 76 I've had in the past, I'm slightly disappointed. As of posting this chapter, the fic has 2 reviews, 2 favorites, 4 followers, and 852 total views, that's great, but none of that now, here's the new chapter.**

 **"Jake and his friends return to their homes as changed people, they didn't know Elfangor long, but Tobias' Father left an impression that will never be forgotten. They talk to each other the next day to decide what to do, and Jake delegates that they wait, give themselves time to process what they witnessed. Deep down however, Jake's the most concerned of them all, the ordeal is unforgettable it'll stay clear in his mind for as long as he lives, however, Tobias makes contact with them, and makes clear he has no intentions of being relegated to the howls of grief that will haunt Jake's memories for all time."**

* * *

 _Lingering_

* * *

Day 1, Afternoon

Nothing else abnormal happened that day. We just boarded the bus. Marco and I shared a seat, with the girls just behind us.

I just sat on the bus in a daze staring out the window, still trying to process what I was seeing. Not the rainstorm that was hitting the bus, no, images of what happened only an hour earlier were still flashing before my eyes as I replayed the events.

I mean, some part of me still can't believe it! I didn't realize until we got back to the camp, but it was like we had stepped into another world when we met Elfangor. What's more, I knew that world had lost one of it's supporting pillars when Elfangor died before our very eyes. Even if Tobias' breakdown didn't convey that, I _felt_ it.

 _A world that we're now a part of_.

I switched my gaze for the first time since I got on the bus, to my right hand. I flexed it and unflexed it, still feeling numb.

"Guys," Rachel leaned forward to whisper to Marco and I.

I twisted back to see Rachel poking her head over the seat.

"What is it?" Marco asked.

"My arm doesn't feel strange anymore," Rachel said.

"Okay," Marco said, leaving it at that. He was just as numb as the rest of us.

I looked at my arm and flexed it again. Actually, now that I was paying closer attention, the numbness seemed to be fading from that limb as well.

"This is insane," Marco whispered, shaking his head. "Just... _insane_!"

The bus ride took little over half an hour until we got to the city we called home. We were dropped off at the front of our high school where our families waited, by that time we had gotten out of the storm.

"Guys," Marco said as the bus pulled into the school parking lot, "we gotta act natural."

"What?" Rachel said in confusion.

"Act _normal_ ," he clarified. "We have to pretend like what we just saw…never happened."

I nodded, and tried to wrap my head around it. This thing was too big, how could I just walk around like nothing happened?

"How do we do that?" Rachel whispered, "How can we just…act the _same_ as before?"

"Let's pretend it's not a big deal," Cassie said. "Tell ourselves that what happened _isn't_ a big deal. We just snuck out of the camp and went on an unauthorized hike. We got in trouble, how about we pretend that we're still bummed out over being caught? It's not exactly a lie, and our folks will possibly ask about it."

Cassie...she has some pretty good ideas.

"I-, we should do that," I said. I stuttered again, I was about to scold myself until I remembered that she was my girlfriend, not an awkward crush. We were officially a thing now. The bus pulled up into the curb where the students usually got off from school.

"When will Tobias come back though?" Rachel whispered. "How long do you think he'll…tend to his dad, before coming here? What are we supposed to do until _then_?"

"We'll lie low," Marco said. "We don't know where the Controllers are. They may be here, or they may be in Atlanta, or Boston or who knows where. But they might be monitoring this place, watching for morphers. We can't afford to blow our cover; we have to wait for Tobias to come to us. He knows where we live. And you absolutely DO NOT morph," he concluded when the door to the bus opened.

I just nodded as we all got up. When I stepped out of the bus, I noticed that the rain had been reduced to a light sprinkle instead of the downpour we were just in.

"Hey, welcome back midget!"

 _Tom_ , I thought with a smile before he wrapped his arm around me. All of a sudden it seemed like the apprehension disappeared. I looked to Tom's smiling face, and with our parents alongside him, I could almost forget the thing that happened. Everything seemed to return to normal.

But then I felt the numbness in my arm disappear with a strange feeling I couldn't describe. Reminding me of the true nature of our situation.

"How was camp?" Mom asked.

"It was awesome," I said with a smile.

"Let's get to the car before the rain starts pouring down like Noah's flood again," Dad said, prompting us to walk back to the Suburban.

As we entered the car, I looked back to see the others be picked up by their parents. Cassie was the closest. We locked eyes and she silently mouthed _be careful_ before turning to join her parents. And that was the last I saw of them that day.

* * *

Day 2, Morning

I woke up, and went through my routine as normal. I pretended as if nothing happened to me, as Cassie suggested. It worked well enough, but it was so strange. I told them about me getting a girlfriend there, _still_ acting nervously and stuttering through it all. I just took Cassie's advice and told myself it wasn't a big deal. They didn't ask about camp, so I guess nobody told them about our unauthorized hike.

"So," Tom asked once he got to the table with his pancakes.

"No," I said with a smile on my face.

"You hang out with Marco too much," he accused me. "Where's the _real_ Jake?"

"I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti," I said laughing before stopping suddenly.

Normally I would've just finished with the Hannibal Lector hissing sound he made after that quote. But Tom asking where the _real_ me was, him wording it like that gave me a chill I would not have had were it not for… _yesterday_.

That experience was like a nuclear bomb; I was still trying to process it. A part of me wanted to forget it, but a part of me didn't because that would mean I would forget Elfangor. I hated Tom at that moment, but he didn't know what he reminded me of, so it lasted only a second. We made small talk while we ate our pancakes, we had good time, we were brothers. Not a single thing we said to each other that morning threw me off again.

"So, what are you doing today, Tom?" I asked him.

"Going to practice basketball with my friends," Tom told me, but his tone indicated that there was a sort of catch. "Buuuut Richard got paid 20 bucks by _Allison_ in return for her coming along."

Tom finished that sentence with a very pained tone. I grimaced. Allison is an airhead and a motormouth. The worst kind of both. She can't stop talking, and makes so many insensitive and just plain stupid comments that your mind just blanks out in an effort to comprehend her vapidness and utter unthinking nature. She's not a mean girl by any stretch, but she's just simply hard to tolerate, and for me in this particular morning, _impossible_.

"Allison said she'd be quiet, but I don't think that's possible for her. I promised to go, but they said nothing about you having to be there," Tom said, offering me a way out.

"Oh thanks!" I said with a relieved smile on my face. "I'm just going to stay here, enjoy the indoors for a while, along with TV," I finished with a smile.

"Right," Tom said as he finished breakfast. "I'll be back at 11, enjoy the indoors dude!" Tom said before going away and preparing to go out to the basketball game.

 _Yeah_ , I thought. _I should definitely follow bro's advice and watch some TV. I could use the distraction._

I walked over to the couch, turned the TV on with the remote, and the channel was immediately playing a rerun of action movies from the 80s.

I watched the Terminator for a little bit, but I found none of it to be satisfying.

I knew what was wrong. I couldn't just ignore it, no matter how much I wanted to.

Then the phone rang. Wondering who was calling, I picked it up.

"Hello?" I asked.

"Hey, Jake?" Cassie.

"Ah, Cassie! What's up?"

"I got a letter in the mail yesterday. It's from Tobias."

My casual attitude evaporated. I didn't think we'd hear from him so soon.

"Have you opened it?" I asked.

"No, I called you first when I got the mail. I think we should bring everyone to my barn."

"Okay," I said. "I'll ring the others up, goodbye Cassie."

"Bye Jake, see you soon."

After I hung up on Cassie, I called Rachel and Marco to tell them what was up.

It didn't take long for us to go to the place. When I left, I wrote a note and stuck it on the dining room table.

* * *

Cassie's barn is out of the way, on her family farm. They both work as veterinarians at the Gardens, which is a zoo/amusement park hybrid our town is somewhat famous for.

Cassie and her family are the most eco-friendly of all eco-friendly people. They run a wildlife rehabilitation clinic in that big barn of theirs. Most of the red paint has chipped away from the barn, making it a faded brownish gray, but the wood's still strong.

I parked my bike at the side of the barn and walked up to the barn doors.

I heard it from all the way outside, already the peace was falling apart.

"Okay, I'm sorry! It was just a joke! I didn't mean anything by it, and I _promise_ you I _know_ Cassie's not insane!"

Marco and Rachel, why should I even be surprised they're going at it?

I opened the door to find that Rachel had Marco in a headlock.

I looked around the barn, noticing Cassie was gone, but her clothes were all over the middle of the floor.

"Marco," I said in an even voice. "Where's Cassie? And why did you call her insane?"

My best friend simply pointed up, a wry smile on his face. His neck was still enslaved by Rachel's arms.

"Well, Cassie's family released a bat last night. Apparently, she figured out how to morph it, and I called her 'insane as guano' if you want the watered down version."

Marco turned to Rachel, "but I didn't actually _mean it_ , it was a joke!" he said in an incredibly whiny voice.

"But for real though," Marco said, getting serious again. "What did I tell you guys about morphing? I thought we were here to read a letter from Tobias!"

I then heard a quiet squeaking noise, and saw a little dark thing flapping its wings in the rafters.

"Cassie?" I asked the little flying creature. "Cassie? Can you come down?"

There was no response.

 _That's strange_ , I thought.

"Cassie?" I asked my girlfriend, holding out my arm. "Can you please join us and turn back?"

There was no answer.

"Hey, if you're offended about the joke, I'm sorry," Marco called up. "Really, I mean it!"

"Something's wrong," Rachel said. "She should've responded!"

 _Oh no, what if Marco was right? What if Elfangor swindled us all!_

"Cassie?" I said, fear beginning to creep into me. "Cassie, respond!"

"I knew it," Marco whispered through gritted teeth. "This is bad, I _knew_ something was wrong with that Elfangor dude!"

All I could do was look at the rafters, where Cassie was. A bat. Cassie turned into a bat, and she may never be able to return. I was beginning to feel panic. Like, I'd finally gotten my first real girlfriend, and after a day she turns into a bat? Possibly never to come back?

Then I remembered.

"Guys, the envelope!" I said to the others.

"What?" Rachel asked.

"Tobias' envelope," I clarified. "He may have written down how the morphing works! Do you know where it is?"

"No," Marco said. "Cassie never showed us."

"Maybe she stashed it somewhere in the barn, look around the barn!"

I looked all around the hay bales, Marco looked around the animal cages, and Rachel looked at the stables. After looking pretty much everywhere else, I found it, stuck where the shovels were.

"Guys, I found it!" I said, walking over to it and removing it from the board the hooks were nailed to. I heard the others rush to me as I read who the letter was from.

Tobias.

"What are you waiting for?" Marco said. "Just open it!"

I walked over to the hay bales and tore the envelope open with my bare hands.

* * *

 **And there it is, what do you think? Please do leave a review on this fic, it feeds the soul of the goblin that writes this...ME!**

 **And credit where credit is due, this was edited by my legendary Beta Reader! flaks314**


	10. VIII First Branching

**34 views on a single day, 4 followers, 2 reviews, and a third favoriter! Welcome to the hole king of the kaiju, you caught the disease! That's good, but there are still only 2 reviews, I really would like for you to tell me what you think of this story. As of posting this chapter, this fic has 1,087 views, keep it coming! But anyway, here's chapter 8.**

 **"Cassie's first attempt at morphing was successful, she turned herself into a bat before Rachel and Marco's very eyes, but soon after Jake arrived everyone realized that something has gone horribly wrong. In desperation, the trio looks to the envelope Tobias left them for answers, and a way to hopefully undo the change."**

* * *

 _First Branching_

* * *

I took the letter out of its packaging. The paper felt strange in my hands; the yellow color indicated that the paper used to make both the letter and its envelope was very old.

"Come on, what does it say?" Rachel asked desperately.

"From: Tobias. To: Cassie and her three friends."

"You don't have to read the format text," Marco said impatiently. "Hurry up!"

I nodded, then got back to reading.

"Hello Cassie, it's me, Tobias. I know our first meeting didn't go the way I'd hoped it would've. If you're reading this letter aloud to the others, you don't have to narrate the format text at the… beginning…" I said as my eyes widened.

I heard Marco break down into laughter behind me.

"Are you serious?" Rachel said. "Of all the things he could've started out with, _that's_ his opening line?"

"Everyone, quiet," I said. "I'm not done yet!"

As I continued reading the letter, the others went quiet with anticipation.

"This note will explain the mechanics of morphing. First off, in order to morph an animal, you need to touch the creature with the palm of your hands and force your will on that creature. This will have a calming effect on every animal you touch. This can be utilized to stun any living organism through retaining contact, or even making them fall dead asleep. Then you can choose whether you want to acquire the creature's DNA."

"Huh, that's useful," Marco muttered, impressed.

"Why didn't Elfangor just tell us this?" Rachel asked incredulously.

"They were pressed for time," Marco said. "Do we really have to read all of it? Just skip to the part where it says what happens when you morph!"

I skimmed through the pages of the letter, trying to find the section where it would describe something like this happening.

"Found it," I said.

"Once you've taken in the acquired amount of materials to construct an animal's body and morph into it, the next step to gaining control of the animal is to morph it for the first time. The first step is to find an isolated place for you to morph where the animal in question cannot escape, because when you morph an animal for the first time, you will always lose yourself in the animal's mind. Keep in mind you're turning into an actual animal, partly in mind as well as body. 100% of the time, you will eventually assert control over the animal body, but if you break out before you gain control of your morph, this process can be prolonged to the point of taking days."

"It takes _days_?" Rachel asked, not happy at all with what she was hearing. I just read on.

"This process can be sped up by attempting to vocally 'wake up' the person morphed, or by inducing the animal body into a stressful environment, though you must be careful not to harm the animal body or cause too much stress. Though the latter method is faster, both results in the morphed person gaining control of the morph. Once you gain control for the first time, you won't have that problem when morphing it again."

"Induce it into a stressful environment?" I asked no one in particular. "How do we do that?"

"Cassie said that animals don't like sudden loud noises because they cause stress, right?" Marco said. "What if we scream our brains out at the heavens at how _insane_ this all is until Cassie wakes up?"

"Are you _serious_?" I asked my best friend, but as I thought about it more, it really did look like a good idea, and by what Cassie told me about animals, it does make sense. "Do it," I decided.

"Wait, you're _serious_? Also, isn't that Rachel's line?" Marco asked.

"Marco," Rachel said in a deadly serious voice as she put her hands on his shoulders. "That was the best idea you've had all week, _let's do it_."

Then without warning Marco lifted his head to the roof and let out an agonized wail. This is the kind of scream I haven't heard since he stepped on that nail at Allison's place when he had a barbecue. You won't believe how close his Dad came to suing her entire family.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Rachel echoed Marco with her own howl of pure crazy. Her voice was surprisingly high-pitched.

"Jake, join us! It doesn't matter how insane it actually is," Marco said when his first scream ran out of breath. Then he immediately took a breath went and back to screaming his brains out.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

"Wh-why?" I asked again when his howl died down.

"Why not? Your girl needs you! Do it for Cassie!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Rachel and Marco both screamed. I looked back up at the rafters where Cassie was, and all of my hesitation vanished.

My voice joined the chorus, along with the wolves that Cassie kept in the horse stalls.

"AAAAAAAAAAH."

"WOOOOOOooooooooo"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH."

"OOOOOOOOOooooooooooo"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH."

((Guys, stop! Stop! Please, just _stop_!)) I heard Cassie's voice ring out in my head. The second I heard the voice everyone in the room flinched and stopped screaming.

I heard a faint fluttering noise and barely glimpsed a bat fly down into the stalls where the horses and… _wolves_ were at.

"Uh, Cassie, there are wolves in those stalls!" I warned.

((Not all of them, there's an empty one right here.))

After a few seconds, I heard a sound like shifting sands. This lasted for a while, until Cassie collapsed to the ground and started breathing like she was literally a second away from drowning.

I ran to the stalls where the wolves and horses were kept.

"Cassie, are you-Oh, ooh!" I began to ask then backtracked when I saw her lying on the ground… without her clothes. I backed out immediately, remembering too late that her outfit was on the ground.

"Cassie, would you like me to get you your clothes or-," I asked my girlfriend.

"Yes, _please_ , that…would be _won_ … _derful_ ," she barely managed to say in a wavering voice.

Rachel took my place as I went back to get Cassie's wardrobe off the barn floor.

"Are you alright?" Rachel asked. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Four, and I…feel so _weird_ ," Cassie said in an almost normal voice as I grabbed her wardrobe, and only then remembered that I was still holding Tobias' letter. As I walked back over to the stall she was in, Cassie spoke up. "It feels like there's _something_ in my throat."

"Are you hurt?" Rachel asked.

"Thanks, I'm fine. How did you guys know to do… _that_ to bring me back?"

"We read the letter," Marco said. He was serious, his eyes hard, totally lacking in any of the humor he had only minutes ago. Marco's voice had a _biting_ tone I never heard him speak before. "And next time when I say we don't do something for the safety of the group, maybe it would do you well to _actually listen_?"

"Marco!" Rachel started as she took the clothing from my hand. "Cut it out!"

"No Rachel, Marco's right. I'm sorry for scaring you like that, I… I should've listened," Cassie said, dejected.

Marco's face softened, and he scratched the back of his head. He angrily sighed then responded.

"Cassie you gave us all a heart attack. We thought you had permanently turned into a bat! A _bat_!" Marco explained. "We don't know _anything_ about how this power works, what it's downsides are. We know _nothing_ of the risks, which is _why_ I told you, why I told _everyone_ not to morph. We had no idea that would happen! This letter Tobias sent us is obviously an instruction manual."

"Marco," I said, putting my hand on his shoulder. "Calm down, it's over now."

"Yes," Marco said, a smile on his face. "It's over, and we should take steps to make sure this never happens again."

I nodded in agreement.

"Right. Before we do anything else, we read the letter," I asserted, holding the papers up.

"From beginning to end," Marco agreed.

"Hey guys," Cassie said. "Could you please wait 'till I'm dressed to read it?"

"Sure, we'll be by the hay bales," I said as we walked over to the main area where the animal's cages were kept and sat on the hay bales.

"No shortcuts," Rachel said as we sat down and Marco walked past us. "It's not like we're reading a 400 page book on this subject."

"Marco, where are you going?" I asked him.

Marco turned to look at us as he reached the closed barn door. "To check outside. Cassie's parents might have heard that racket we were making."

He opened it and stuck his head outside, looking all around. He did this for a while, and was totally silent the whole time. In the end he sighed and re-entered, closing the doors. Just as Marco closed the doors Cassie walked out, fully dressed.

"Okay, nothing out there. Let's get on with it."

They both sat down, Cassie next to me. She leaned her head against my right shoulder.

"Okay, here we go."

* * *

 _This note will explain the base mechanics of morphing. First off, in order to morph an animal, you need to touch the creature with the palm of your hands and force your will on that creature. This will have a calming effect on every animal you touch. This can be utilized to stun any living organism through retaining contact, or even making them fall dead asleep. Then you can choose whether you want to acquire the creature's DNA._

 _Once the animal is rendered docile to the point of immobility, you will need to retain contact and then focus on the animal. This will allow you to scan its DNA, and allow you to turn into the animal. There are countless devices in the palms of our hands that will scan the entire genetic code of the creature. Touching the box did not fully give you the morphing power; in order to get access to all of the abilities and finalize Elfangor's Gift, you must morph an animal for the first time, then revert to your true form. Make sure your first morph is a small mammal, like a mouse, or a bat, anything bigger than a house cat and you'll run into issues._

 _This is because once you return to your true body for the first time, you'll be able to store excess biomass, the materials that the morphs that have more, or different, matter than humans do._

"Store excess biomass?" I asked. "How would we even get it?"

"I'm betting that means I can eat anything I want and not get fat!" Marco piped up.

"You wish," Rachel bumped him in the shoulder.

"Wanna bet?"

"Nah, there's not a single thing you have that's worth risking money for."

" _Ouch_ ," Cassie whispered. I turned back and continued reading out loud.

 _The matter that your animal morph is made from cannot come from nowhere. This is the reason a small mammal must be your first morph, and it's also the reason why the first morphing will always be the hardest. The body of the creature you turn into is made up completely of your original body, while the rest of your original form is shoved inside the subdimension where all of the mass your bigger morphs are made of will be stored, and where your human form is kept safe while you're in the morphed body._

 _Upon reverting to your true body for the first time, you will feel exhausted and out of breath. Do not panic, both symptoms are only a temporary thing, and will not happen again when you revert to your true form later. However, you may notice that morphing your first animal took some time – a few minutes in fact – but the more you morph a specific creature, the less time the changes take to complete the next time you morph into it. And do not fret, once you mentally gain control of the animal you have morphed, you would have absolute control of the morphed body, but with the animal in your head too; this is useful when you're flying or trying to act like an animal._

 _Returning to the subject of mass; in order to morph any creature bigger than yourself, you must consume the organic materials the creatures are made of. In order to do so you have to think to…oh it's so hard to describe, the way I did it was to always think of 'adding it to your stockpile' as it goes down your throat. It will not hit your stomach, but instead enter this subdimension, where it will be stored and broken down to its smallest parts. You can also use this method to store certain objects you wish to keep extra safe. As long as it will fit down your throat and you think of only 'keeping it safe' it will be perfectly preserved, provided you can swallow it whole of course._

"So that's why my throat feels strange…" Cassie muttered, holding her neck.

"Called it," Marco said with little interest. "About the swallowing thing, I mean…that ability sounds seriously freaky. Useful, but freaky."

 _This is merely the easiest method. Another good way of doing this is to press the matter against your bare skin. This is more exhausting, and increases the time it takes for you to morph, but the upside is you can store objects you can't swallow. Once the materials or objects have been processed and are stored, you'll be able to will it out through your skin. Just focus on the part of your body that you want the object or biomass to come out of, and presto. Depending on the kind of object, one of two things will happen. The object will either be separated from your body and return to the physical world that way, or the biomass will simply pour out of you, sort of like a slushie machine. How fast and how much is up to you._

"What…?" Rachel asked. "Eeeeeew, that's nasty!"

"You can always trust Tobias to go farther than anyone in the 'explaining concepts' department," I said.

"Let's just move on before I get sick…" Marco commented.

"Look on the bright side, it's not like we're pooping it out."

"CASSIE! What did I just say?!"

 _When you acquire a creature, your morphed body will be the same age as the creature you acquired, so make sure that your morph is in peak condition. What will also affect the morph is what season you acquire the animal in. If you acquire an animal that has no major behavioral and physical changes year-round, like tigers and eagles, you won't encounter any issues. On the other hand, if you were to acquire a hibernating animal such as any bear that isn't polar, you cannot do it when they're hibernating, because once you morph it, you'll have an incredibly difficult time trying to stay awake._

 _Another use for biomass, besides creating bodies, is when you're grievously injured in human or animal form. You simply change to the other form, and the damage is near instantly undone in that body. But beware, do not rely on this regenerative ability to fight recklessly. If you do not have enough biomass to reconstruct the body you wish to transform into, your true self, or otherwise, you will show no signs of change. Transforming back will be impossible until you consume the right amount of biomass. If you're ever grievously injured in that form before acquiring enough body mass to morph out, your chances of survival will be dire._

 _However, if you sustain not immediately lethal damage in your true form, such as a concussion, or your feet getting chopped off, you can regenerate your body at will. This restorative state requires you to be relatively still, so no sudden movements. It will also remove all foreign objects, from bullets and knives to pacemakers and bone splints. If you're in a situation where you don't want to morph an animal, you can acquire yourself and morph into that in order to reverse the damage as quickly as possible unnoticed._

 _Once you've taken in the acquired amount of materials to construct an animal's body and morph into it, the next step to gaining control of the animal is to morph it for the first time. The first step is to find an isolated place for you to morph where the animal in question cannot escape, because when you morph an animal for the first time, you will always lose yourself in the animal's mind. Keep in mind you're turning into an actual animal, partly in mind as well as body. 100% of the time, you will eventually assert control over the animal body, but if you break out before you gain control of your morph, this process can be prolonged to the point of taking days._

 _This process can be sped up by attempting to vocally 'wake up' the person morphed, or by inducing the animal body into a stressful environment, though you must be careful not to harm the animal body or cause too much stress. Though the latter method is faster, both results in the morphed person gaining control of the morph. Once you gain control for the first time, you won't have that problem when morphing it again._

Marco whistled. "Man, that's some awesome stuff, I'm kind of wishing that I just touched the cube with the rest of you guys."

 _Once morphed, you have a set of abilities that are active during that time. One is thought speech: once you gain control of your first morph, you will be able to telepathically communicate in both human and animal form, as well as send pictures to other people's minds. As long as two of you are on the same planet and awake at the same time, you'll be able to communicate with one another telepathically, but only as long as you reach out to and speak with a specific person you have in mind._

 _With enough practice and concentration, you can also use thought speech as a weapon. One method is essentially screeching in their head as loud as you can to scramble their brains. With discipline, you'll also be able to cause auditory and visual halucinations. Cassie should be able to master the latter ability easily, but for the vast majority of people touched by the box it'll take years to learn how to do it._

"Whoa," Rachel said. "Just… whoa."

"Alright, now this is just getting _stupid_ ," Marco commented while laughing. "You're telling me I'll be able to send my bullies to the loony bin, where those violent psychopaths belong?"

"Marco…" I turned away from reading the letter to face my best friend with one eyebrow raised.

"Wait, you're serious?" Rachel.

"I think we should be more concerned that Tobias misspelled hallucinations," Cassie offered.

"Agreed," I elected, then returned to reading the note.

 _With the coming conflict and hardship in mind, there are certain things you cannot do. For one, you must take care to never, ever, no matter the circumstances, have sexual intercourse AT ALL throughout the duration of the conflict._

"What?" Marco asked. "Why?"

"Shut up and let Jake finish!" Rachel.

 _While it can be tempting to relieve the inevitable stress through the act of 'recreational reproduction,' you must keep in mind that if you ever get pregnant, whether you're in morph or in your true form, you will be unable to morph for the entire duration which the baby/babies are inside your body, and must wait until the offspring leaves your body. **DO NOT** attempt abortion either; if you do, then on top of committing infanticide, your temporary inability to morph may become permanent._

I just stopped reading out loud, and everyone held an awkward silence. I looked back at the group, Rachel had her mouth open like the barn door, and Cassie's eyes were moons, her right hand positioned over her stomach.

"Well, that's good to know!" Marco finally said in an awkward and _very_ freaked out voice.

"Let's just finish it, we're almost at the end," I said.

 _With all of this in mind, be aware that the Controllers are out there. You cannot morph anywhere in public where human eyes can see. You cannot tell anyone. They could be everywhere, anyone. There's no surefire way to tell who's infested. That aside, until I return you MUST master your newfound abilities, and in order to do that you have to morph. Morph the animals you intend to use as many times as possible; this will tire you out but it will speed up how fast the changes occur. You need three morphs that you'll use above all, I've dubbed this the three Bs; Bird, Bug, and Battle. One to travel, one to sneak, and one to beak the lines. Versatility is key to maximizing our combat effectiveness; while five grizzly bears would be devastating, having a lion, tiger, jaguar, hawk, and grizzly bear would be harder for enemies to handle. Each have their own weaknesses and strengths._

 _All of the above will serve you well. As long as you do not attempt to test morph multiple animals at the same time, morph in public, or morph in a place where your animal body can escape, the process should be perfectly safe unless you are incredibly unlucky. It will be a week after the day we met until I can return and help you prepare for the coming battles. Stay secret and safe until then._

 _My father's tracking device remains undiscovered, and is still transmitting. The subject is moving from location to location frequently. I don't have the coordinates for the Controller's base yet, but iI have a few guesses. The worm hasn't come anywhere close to your town. Regardless, please be careful._

I folded the multiple sheets of paper into a square shape, then put it back in the envelope.

"Tobias doesn't know where they are either," Marco mused.

"So, we practice morphing," I said, looking at the animals in the cages.

"Safe to say we most definitely should _not_ have that skunk as our first morph," Cassie commented.

"You can say that again," Rachel agreed. "Let's do it."

"So, which one do you want to do, Rachel? The rabbit, or the bobcat?" Cassie said as we began to walk over to the cages.

"Don't do the rabbit," I said without hesitation. "We all know how fast a rabbit goes. If you run away before we manage to bring you back, we'll have a whole world of trouble on our heads."

"What if I morphed in the empty stall?" Rachel asked.

"That's a good place, but we need to block the gap below the door," I pointed out.

"Good thinking," Marco said, clapping his hands. "Let's grab some hay bales."

* * *

 **And that's it! Oh man, my longest chapter yet! And the first fic I've ever had that reach double digits in chapter numbers, I'm sort of proud of this. But anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter in August. So see you around, and please do comment, I would really appreciate it.**


	11. IX The Proving Shack

**Here it is, This was supposed to be September's chapter! And I'm sorry for being bit late on the last one, Chapter 8 was supposed to be August's chapter, but I submitted it to flaks314 a little bit later than I should have, and they took a while to send it back because it was so big and because I think they're still painting their house. But anyway, better than last time, 51 views when the chapter was published, and as of posting this chapter, the story has a grand total of 1,300 views. That's great! But honestly, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, please tell! I've posted one-shots with more comments than this ten chapter story, would you mind telling me what your problems are with this story? What do you like about it? What areas you think need improvement?**

 **Anyway, it looks like this is October's chapter, here it is.**

* * *

 _Proving Shack_

* * *

Day 4, Morning

By all means it was a wonderful morning. The air was mercifully cool, despite the sun. I told my folks I was hanging out with my new girlfriend, which wasn't a lie, so at least that wasn't on my conscience. My bike sat parked outside. Cassie was getting the stall where I would test morph my next animal ready. I would've waited outside, but there was no wind, and I preferred the shade. Eventually, I heard a bike pull up then fall to the ground on the gravel road, and sat up and listened to Marco walk up to the barn.

"Okay, Jake-man" Marco said as he opened and closed the door, though it was still a little bit open. "Are you _absolutely sure_ you ate enough of it this time?"

I'd morphed my first animal the other day. A bobcat, a particularly bald one because humans aren't furry. It took my friends some time to get me to take control of it, but after that it was easy. All I had to do was to make sure to consume the right materials, and then turn into said animal.

This time I was aiming for a flying creature, but getting the right materials to turn into a bird is easier said than done.

"I am sure Marco, that I… _stockpiled_ enough, maybe enough to morph into an ostrich," I responded warily.

"How'd you get the feathers though? You didn't swallow roadkill, did you?"

"Of course only _you'd_ ask that," Rachel quipped from one of the stalls. Her voice was drawn out, and her breaths were heavy. Her arms were hanging over the stall door, but other than that, the head and collar were the only parts we could see. She was covered in sweat, taking a break from the morphing practice. "If you did it, it'd be cannibalism."

"Oh yeah? What'll you do if you run out of Spice Girls?"

"Then I'll eat you with the Red Hot Chili Peppers!"

"Now who's the cannibal?"

"Hey Marco, you wouldn't mind helping Rachel practice, would you? You could use the experience," Cassie piped up from further in. I looked to Rachel to see her staring intensely at Marco. She punched the palm of her hand, making a surprisingly loud noise.

"Ah, ow!" he suddenly cried out, holding his side as he slid off the hay bales. "No, I'm good over here, I think I sprained something!"

"That's what I thought," Rachel huffed before retreating back to the stall.

"Jake, the stall's ready," Cassie said.

Before I walked to her, I went to Marco's side and found him laying on the floor, pretending to be dead.

"You're so pathetic," I said as I pushed some hay bales on top of him. He didn't say anything.

I moved to Cassie, who held the stall door open.

"A tale older than time! Beauty and the Beast!" Marco piped up from under his pile.

I entered the stall and Cassie closed the door behind me, and took in my surroundings. There were blankets everywhere that blocked out light, and those blankets all had nets behind them. She'd basically made a cage, so I wouldn't be able to fly out of here. I looked back to the stall door and saw Cassie putting hay bales at the bottom gap, so I wouldn't be able to escape that way either. Cassie poked her head up and held out her hand, looking away from me.

Of course.

I undressed, starting with my shoes and socks. I gave those to Cassie without question. Then everything else until I was totally uncovered.

"I'm done," I said, sitting down. "Tell me when you're ready."

"Okay," Cassie answered before stepping on a ladder and putting the last blanket/net up. I heard her move the ladder a couple of times and adjust the net. "You should be good to go."

All right, this is it.

I took a deep breath and stood up, then I focused on my morph. The first of the three Bs, the bird I plan on morphing most frequently. I pictured the animal in order to trigger the change.

The hawk had white undersides and a dark brown color above. It had brownish-black marks on the wings, and more brown speckling on the chest. The head was white with more brown at the top, and a long brown mark down the cheek. This bird ate fish, indicated by a crook in its narrow wings, and it might also be able to see through the surface of rivers, as well as the glossy sheen of windows with those fierce yellow eyes.

Yes, the possibility of them being able to see through windows was why I chose the osprey… Oh man that sounds so bad. Cassie and her animal factoids, where would we be without her?

Well, _I_ wouldn't have the best girlfriend ever, much less one that trusts me not to peep.

...and one that doesn't peep on anyone.

But nevertheless I focused on the osprey. I pictured him in my mind, flying over the rivers, peering under the surface for fish to catch. I focused for a few seconds, and was worried that the changes wouldn't happen, but after about five seconds I heard a sound like shifting sand, and felt the changes begin.

I let a smile consume my face as I shrunk. It was just like the bobcat; it felt like I was falling, not shrinking. Needless to say, becoming a midget nudist is a very interesting experience. I became numb to the changes, and apathetic in a very strange way. After I shrunk to become just a foot tall, by my guess, my lips and nose turned into a beak. I felt the hair on my head recede and thin out, and felt even more tiny hairs burst out of my skin, except for my lower legs. I felt strange as my hips realigned themselves and I hunched over, and my hairs turned into feathers.

I saw my skin turn into a pale gray, and my fingers merged into one appendage as more of the thick hairs sprung out. These hairs grew longer and longer as they widened and turned into flight feathers. My knees reversed direction. I decided to lift my feet off the ground one by one, and found that it made the process faster. My legs below the knees became thinner and bonier, and the skin scalier until they were replaced by bare skinned talons.

My front toes merged together and grew in length, tipped by massive black nails, while more long scaly fingers sprang out the back of my feet. My skull changed shape as my brain turned into a more avian design, my vision darkened for a moment, and I felt a brief panic before my sight returned when my eyes changed into the osprey's fierce yellow. And when my eyesight returned, I saw every object in greater contrast and brighter colors, and on top of that there was the long binocular vision I chose this creature for. These changes and many others occurred all in the course of a few minutes, but it felt a lot longer than that. The act of morphing drained me, but now the changes were complete.

When the sound like shifting sands stopped, I was an osprey, and then _I_ wasn't.

* * *

 _I looked around and noticed that there wasn't any open sky. It wasn't cramped, but I grew nervous. I felt an unfamiliar flatness under my talons instead of the branches and fish I should be grabbing. I shouldn't be here, the ground is no place for me, I looked around for a place where I might fly up and perch._

 _"Jake?" I heard a creature call out. I turned my head toward the sound, and pretty soon I saw the outline of the creature that made the noise. I kept my eyes on it, because I knew that without anywhere to fly to, if it decided to attack me I would have to fight it. With how restricted I was, and how big that creature was, my chances were bad already._

 _"Cassie, you got the thing?" I heard another creature call from out of sight._

 _"Sure thing, let me just get it out…"_

 _Then all of a sudden, I noticed a gentle sound and turned towards it. A gap was appearing in the wall. A chance to escape? It didn't get any bigger, but a large, dark appendage appeared out of it, holding something. I recognized those sounds faintly, it was one of the straight leg creatures that -_

 _BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!_

 _All of a sudden a horrible noise rang out from the appendage! It was so loud and deafening! The appendage then threw the noise making thing at me. I jumped away, flapping my wings._

 _"Oh my god, Cassie, you brought a_ car alarm?"

 _I shrieked and flapped my wings, trying to get away from the noise. Agh, this is bad, I have to get away from here! I tried to flap away, but hit the wall, I clawed at it, but it just wouldn't give!_

 _BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!_

 _It's horrible, oh it is so horribly loud! At this rate it's even worse than Allison's voice when talking to Jenna about… about…_

 _((SOMEONE TURN THAT CRAP OFF BEFORE I EAT YOUR FACES!))_ I shouted loudly upon regaining my senses. Then I stopped in my tracks immediately after.

Did…did I just say that?

I fluttered to the ground as Cassie opened the stall door, holding my clothes and shoes. She walked in and turned the device off.

Everything was quiet when the device was turned off, but I could hear Marco whisper to himself after a while. "Oh man, that turned metal."

With the animal's instincts under control, I just stood on the floor in shock. Cassie put my clothes on the floor and left the stall, closing the door behind her. I morphed out almost immediately. It took a few minutes again, but eventually the sound shifting sands faded. With nothing left to do I got dressed, and when I got my shorts on, I heard Marco speak out.

"Hey Cassie?" he said nervously, "Your dad's coming over here! He's in a hurry and he does not look like he's in a good mood!"

Oh no.

I hurried up the speed of me getting dressed quicker than before.

"Oh crap, we gotta get our clothes back on, if Walter finds us like this," Rachel left the rest of the sentence hanging in the air.

I got out of the stall at the same time Rachel did, fully clothed. Cassie gave Marco the small device.

I took a deep breath as Walter opened the barn door.

"What's going on here?" he demanded.

"Hey, Walter," I said nervously. Why am I more nervous around him than before? We already know each other.

"We're helping Cassie muck the stables," Rachel said.

"You don't look like you've been doing that…"

"I've been helping with some of the other chores."

"It's my fault," Marco blurted out. I raised my eyebrows.

"Wh-" Rachel turned around and was about to ask before Marco continued.

"It was a prank, I got this car alarm and wanted to scare the crap out of everybody, so I set it off."

"Marco, I know you're Jake's friend, and Cassie's his girlfriend…" A part of me squirmed inside as he said that, I just scratched the back of my head. Meanwhile, Cassie's dad grew a very stern look on his face.

"But setting off loud noises in a barn full of animals can be very harmful to them. These creatures are injured and sick, they don't need any more stress. This is a wildlife rehabilitation clinic, not a rave house! So I better not catch you doing that again."

"Yes sir," Marco said.

"Good," Cassie's dad said before exiting the barn. He didn't close the door behind himself.

We all stood around there for a while, not knowing what to say next. We awkwardly stood until Marco broke the silence.

"We have a problem," Marco pointed out.

"We can't use the barn for first time morphing," Rachel said. "What we need to do to wake us up is too loud, for both the animals in here, and Cassie's parents."

"But we need to induce the morph into a stressful environment, which won't be easy without sound, and make a place where said morphed bodies can easily be contained," Cassie elaborated. "And we have no other building than this one."

"Then we only practice the morphs we already have," I said with a growing grin. "We already have the bird morphs we plan to use for local travel, and the bugs, among others. But I think it's time we started practicing our flight skills."

"Oh yeah! That sounds awesome!" Rachel said. "Where do we do it, though?"

"Why not right in Cassie's backyard?" I suggested while looking at her.

"Fine by me," Cassie said while nodding.

"Really wishing I touched the cube," Marco shook his head as he followed. "But one question?"

"Alright, shoot," I responded as I opened the door.

"We _are_ going to morph in the cover of trees for this test flight, right?"


	12. Interlude 2, Break Free

**Okay, another Interlude, this time more action packed, because there will be a lot more instances in this fanfiction where the Animorphs are NOT fighting the Yeerks. This is also interesting because I'm going to be introducing a few OCs in this story, well, the first OCs that are obvious. But anyway, I hope you enjoy this.**

* * *

 _Break Free_

* * *

 **[2 months before Jake, Rachel, and Cassie received the morphing power]**

 _There were no real light sources inside the cave, and there was no proper temperature regulation or ventilation. The whole place was unyieldingly cold, worse yet, the entire place stunk to high heaven with a smell you could only get from confined creatures not bathing for a long time. The end of the cave was a colossal pit, the cells, spiraling stairs, and intersecting pathways were dug out from the rock, the walkable paths were barely smoothed over. The only real light sources the inhabitants inside the cave had were small devices the wardens gave only to the prisoners who were more compliant to make their lives easier, the ones they really wanted to keep inside, those they considered really heinous beasts they kept near the bottom of the colossal pit._

 _There was only one species held in The Pit of the Fractured, making the logistics of containing them all the easier._

 _The cells in the bottom were more sturdily built, had more defense mechanisms in place, and had no expense spared at keeping the prisoners from ever getting out. This was because the jailors knew many of the prisoners kept at the bottom had allies that wanted to bust them out very very badly. Despite being so heavily built and hidden, the prison was not impregnable, worsening the problem was the fact that the wardens were too few. Eventually said allies successfully sent an infiltrator through the defenses undetected, and in the dead silence of night, crept into the pit._

 _It walked down the stairs soundlessly with its feet wrapped in soft artificial flesh, it checked every single cell it could, most were empty. In most of the cells that were inhabited, the prisoners were in fitful sleep, trying to ignore the cold, long used to the stench of this place. There were some prisoners however, who were awake, unable to rest, pacing their cages in circles. The robot moved unseen past those as well, it knew that them knowing it was there would most likely cause the prisoners to alert the wardens to its presence, intentionally or otherwise._

 _It tiptoed on the stone pathways and stairs with a precision and control no living person could replicate. The being was impossibly careful not to step on the pressure pads underneath the stone that would set off an alarm._

 _The robot moved with an invisibility cloak to conceal itself, if it was found before it had busted its target out, it would be over, it knew it would not survive its mission. Each cell bar had a sensor that would alert the wardens should it ever be tempered with, and from that point on, it would have to work quickly to remove the bindings that constricted the prisoner's power in order to escape. It could only free one inhabitant, and it had a priority list._

 _There was one prisoner on the second to last row who was more colossally built than the rest of his race. He was sitting on his stone bed, staring at the floor, as deathly still as a statue, not even his breaths were visible. His features were harder than the stone he was surrounded by, and his physique was resembling that of what the humans would call a god._

 _Another was smaller than average, situated close to the very bottom, her cell had special accommodations, she was on a table meant to keep her in suspended animation, her body was perfectly preserved. The seemingly ornamental mask she wore that covered her entire lower face seemed innocent, but it was meant to keep her asleep, she was so defiant that her captors put that mask on her to keep her asleep for weeks on end. As long as it was kept there, she would never wake up._

 _At the top there was another who was entirely wrapped in pale beige bindings with sparse bloodstains, his entire body was concealed as he was strapped to a chair. In his back a number of giant ambiguously colored rods were sticking out like porcupine quills, the cell was filled with operating equipment, and surrounding his chair were a multitude of life support systems that provided the only light in his cell._

 _All of a sudden a red and gold light illuminated the room, and a blaring had sounded off. The robot flinched, feeling the slightest concern that it had been detected. If this robot failed they might not get another chance to break their ally out! But an explosion that shook the prison confirmed that the distraction had arrived in force. Many of the prisoners had been woken up and were voicing their concern._

 _The robot quickened its pace ever so slightly, as it knew that its creators could only buy so much time against the prisoner's superior firepower. It checked the remaining cells from a balcony with turrets lined up, the room was made so that the last two circles of cells were visible from just that one platform. Then it saw one cell on the second to last row, it smiled internally, this is the specimen the Saboteur was sent here to bust out._

 _The robot could hear the weapon's fire of his comrades from inside the Pit. Time was short, it could delay no longer._

 _The Saboteur extended its arm, and a sort of cannon was formed out of it, there was a crisscrossing of blue beams as the weapon charged. This one shot would completely remove all of the bars of a single cell, and immediately afterwards The Saboteur would jump down and remove the restraints from the prisoner. Then the robot would escort the prisoner to freedom, where it would distract the wardens while he escaped to their forces._

 _Any of the ones on the bottom would do, but with him back on their side, the tide would finally turn in their favor!_

 _The Saboteur noticed the giant staring at him, able to see the brightening lights of its canon. Knowing what the robot was sent here to do, the giant smiled with sharp jagged teeth and remained silent, his green glowing eyes filled with a gleeful spite he felt towards his captors knowing what the most dangerous inmate in the prison would do to them._

 _It locked its targeting systems on the bars of the cage, then it prepared to fire. But another explosion rang out, much heavier than the others, the entire facility was shaken as if hit by an earthquake, causing the Saboteur to stumble right as it fired._

 _The shot flew, but it missed the bars of the cell it was aiming for! The targeting systems had autolocked on another cell, and had removed the bars of that one, not quite the deadliest prisoner, but still powerful enough to be a potential game-changer. Though the one The saboteur meant to free would remain in his cage, today would not be a total loss._

 _A new alarm blared out throughout the facility, one of the cells had been compromised._

 _The Saboteur leapt down from the balcony and sprinted to the cell as the bars began to fall down._

 _This prisoner's orange eyes were wide awake, and when it laid eyes on the Saboteur, he nodded in thanks as the restraints were removed. His chest heaved and his muscles flexed, prepared for an extreme bout of physical activity. This preparation only lasted a few moments, as the Saboteur and the prisoner immediately made a run for it. When they entered the bottom of the pit the robot grappled to the balcony twenty feet above while the prisoner leapt up onto it. Just as they stood up to continue their sprint to freedom, the doors to the chamber burst open and they heard a rapid series of footsteps._

 _The Prisoner leapt to the cells, jumping across the stairways that lead up to the entrance, then another robot entered the edge of the pit and looked down at The Saboteur, they both stared at each other._

 _The Saboteur then dropped its cloak, revealing a brightly colored, adorned, and shiny blue war machine made of a pale blue metal. It was vaguely humanoid, but it also had a tail that held a few nasty surprises._

 _The Warden was smaller than the Saboteur and the adornment on it was limited only to red markings on it's dark green and gold plating. The Warden stood up much taller, and though it was smaller it was much more heavily armored, and the inner workings of this machine were far advanced than anythingelse this robot would ever faceup against. The optics of this thing were like purple glittering candles that burned in his helmet and extended to the sides of the head._

 _This machine was much older than the Saboteur, and it had extensive information on him, Dreadsteel._

 _Dreadsteel aimed his arm canon at the Saboteur and opened fire, purple blasts carving away at the stone floor where the robot once stood. The Saboteur grappled up to the next platform forty feet above, the war machine countered by firing an EMP Pulse blast at The Saboteur, it dodged to the side with small thrusters at its side. The Warden fired another EMP blast and it hit the saboteur, stunning the machine as it slammed into the bottom of the balcony._

 _Just as Dreadsteel prepared to fire a rocket to finish off the infiltrator, it was pierced in the shoulder by a javelin attached to a tether made of green energy. The prisoner had managed to equip his shoulder mounted harpoon, and pulled on it, trying to make the warden fall to the ground._

 _The warden identified the prisoner._

 **ID: WT-074**

 **Threat Level: Extreme**

 **Threat Ranking: #3**

 **Date of Birth: Unknown**

 **Place of Birth: Unknown**

 **Identity: Unknown**

 **Alias: Warlike**

 **Response: Swift/Relentless counterattack, Engage in Close Quarters to nullify ranged superiority**

 _Dreadsteel leaned forward ever so slightly and grabbed the harpoon and began pulling on the cable. Warlike grabbed the bars of the empty cell he was in front of, struggling to not be pulled off, it only bought him a few more seconds. Right before Warlike would have been yanked away from the wall, The Saboteur launched an Electromagnetic Purge Cell at Dreadsteel's Chest, a weapon that kills most robots with ease._

 _But Dreadsteel was built with better technology than anything else The Saboteur would ever normally encounter, such a weapon isn't nearly enough to kill him, but it was sufficient to stun him long enough that Warlike was able to pull him off the ledge. The warden's body went prone and fell into the pit, Warlike removed his harpoon before Dread Steel landed on the first balcony, the war machine slid off and landed at the bottom of The Pit. At that time The Saboteur was ascending toward the first balcony with its grapple hook, Warlike aimed his harpoon and shot it at the edge he pulled Dreadsteel off of._

 _The two raced to the very top of the Pit and had climbed over it, when they did Dreadsteel awoke and activated his thrusters. The two started sprinting for the large door into the next room, Dreadsteel woke up and began flying at incredible speeds towards the top. When Dreadsteel poked over the top of the ledge, Warlike and his rescuer had already closed the door. Dreadsteel sprinted towards the door and ran through it as fast as he could, confident that he could stop the Saboteur and its rescue by himself._

 _He had entered a much more brightly lit chamber, this one was connected to the storeroom, the generator, the medical bay, and most disastrously, the entrance. Before he even closed the door Dreadsteel aimed at the escaping duo. He noticed Warlike press a button and he was consumed by an explosion, Dreadsteel noted with shock that Warlike had one last remote det-charge in his arsenal, he was temporarily blinded but closed the door and rushed forward, aiming his cannon at where they would be he prepared to open fire when his senses cleared up._

 _But then his arm cannon started taking hits as Warlike opened fire._

 _Twutwutwutwutwutwutwutwutwu!_

 _It was essentially an alien machine gun, one that his morphing capabilities hid away in his subspace, ensuring they were unable to be confiscated. The Torthon Rake is a heavy weapon designed with armor penetration in mind, and was unfortunately powerful enough to damage Dreadsteel's Cast Beam. Warlike wasn't supposed to be able to recover something from his subspace so fast, but clearly he could as the gun had replaced his forearm. Dreadsteel sprinted faster, pushing a large curved blade out of his left arm as the pair reached the door._

 _He contacted the other wardens, who were fending off the attack on the gates._

 _((Gafinalin, Mertil, you have a Nimba with a prisoner coming out!)) He sent out, but nothing, he noticed too late that the bomb had jammed his comms!_

 _Dreadsteel ran a process to clear away the interference, it required a reboot of his comm systems, a process that only took two seconds of him rapidly closing the distance. Once his comms were reactivated, he sent out the message again just as they went through the door, not even bothering to close it._

 _((There's a Nimba escaping with Warlike! Behind you!))_

 _If either of the pair were human, then the other wardens would have easily been able to stop their advance. But the both of them were too fast for them to properly react, when Dreadsteel entered the gatehouse, he heard one of the two Andalites cry out in pain. Warlike was holding a long shiv that was covered in very dark Andalite blood, Mertil was lying on the ground, writhing in pain, sharp purple crystals were growing out of the middle of his tail like an out of control cancer. The saboteur and his rescuer immediately made a break for the other side where the outer gate had been broken through._

 _Mertil would live, but Dreadsteel rushed up and opened fire on the group of rescuers, vaporizing all of them in one shot with the Cast Beam on his other arm. As the bigger warden tended to his wounded comrade, the Nimba Droid and Warlike had already made it past the enemy lines, but the Nimba's creators all gathered up in front of Dreadsteel. They were each vaporized in one shot, making sounds of pain and shock cut short by the swiftness of their deaths, he killed them easily as he charged forward, but their weapons were inflicting considerable damage._

 _One of the rescuers rushed at Dreadsteel, uttering a battle cry. Dreadsteel knocked him to the ground easily, and in the next step crushed his head underfoot. But Dreadsteel noticed that something had been placed on his midsection, when he looked down it exploded. A cloud of black soot and smoke to emanate from him, leaving a massive gaping hole below his chest. Error messages flashed across his screen, he was about to go into emergency hibernation._

 _He's outside,_ Warlike _is_ outside _, this is bad, impossibly bad, Dreadsteel cannot let any of them out! He saw that The Saboteur and Warlike had both reached the edge of a cliff, he charged his Cast Beam and took aim, the Nimba droid turned around and stood behind Warlike arms and legs spread out to shield him from the blast. Dreadsteel fired a spray of glowing purple and caused the entire cliff side as well as The Saboteur to explode into atoms._

 _That should have shredded him, but Dreadsteel noticed that Warlike was still alive, he had been protected by that Nimba's force field and jumped off the cliff._

 _Dreadsteel limped forward, desperate to prevent even one prisoner from escaping. The war machine stepped on glowing hot rock that crunched like glass underneath his foot._

 _He collapsed at the edge of the cliff, and before his eyes the Grand Canyon was laid out in its vast glory. This site was chosen as a prison not only because it was isolated, hard to reach, and undiscovered by humans, but because the hostility of the landscape would make rescue efforts incredibly difficult._

 _Dreadsteel's eyes scanned the horizon, he had a few precious seconds to find the only survivor of the breakout attempt. There! A Peregrine Falcon was diving down the canyon, making considerable distance towards away from the prison already._

 _The Cast Beam was primed and ready to fire, Dreadsteel targeted the Peregrine Falcon, then fired just as his systems went dark. For many hours Dreadsteel had remained there, after Mertil had been stabilized the remaining warden would venture out to the cliff and find Dreadsteel shut down. Gafinalin would look out to the grand canyon and scan the horizon, all he would find would be a small black scorch mark on the walls of the Grand Canyon, knowing his job had been successfully carried out Gafinalin carried the war machine back inside the prison for repairs._

 _Though Mertil would be able to make a recovery, Dreadsteel would remain in hibernation mode for the duration of the conflict._

* * *

 _The night was late around Lake Mead, a Peregrine falcon was falling from the sky due to exhaustion after flying as fast as it could away from the Grand Canyon. It dive bombed one last time and landed in the shallow edge of the lake. The bird began to twitch, a sharp but muted snapping sound was produced by the prisoner's body as he returned to his true form._

 _As the transformation completed itself, Warlike began to make the crawl towards the Western Shore of Lake Mead. He was tired, and his release from his imprisonment was not anticipated. Warlike kept on crawling towards the shore, he would not allow himself to rest until he was clear outside of the water. His movements were agonizingly slow, and he only sat down once he was several feet away from the lake's western edge. The place he was in was deserted, no humans to be seen anywhere._

 _With nothing to do he looked up at the sky, what he saw was not a ceiling of rock, but a night sky with glittering stars scattered all around as far as he could see. With his night vision he could see it even clearer than most humans._

I'm free, _was Warlike's first thought. He smiled, spread his arms out and couldn't do anything except laugh in utter derangement at the sheer impossibility of his situation._

 _"Hahahahahahahahahahahaha_ _hahahahahahahahahahahah_ _hahahahahahahahahahahaha_ _hahahahahahahahahahahaha_ _hahahahahahahahahahahaha_ _hahahahahahahahahahahaha_ _hahahahahahahahahahahaha_ _hahahahahahahahahahahah_ _hahahahahahahahahahahaha_ _hahahahahahahahahahahah_ _hahahahahahahahahahahah_ _hahahahahahahahahahahaha!"_

 _His laughter continued until he was out of breath and collapsed, with his back to the ground. It was as if Warlike had entered another world, the horrid smell of his cell was finally gone, he could see the sky for the first time in years, sure, he was cold, but that didn't matter. Warlike then felt a gentle breeze, the first wind he felt since his imprisonment._

 _Warlike's eyes then hardened as his thoughts returned to the one who locked him in the pit in the first place._

 _"Elfangor," Warlike said as he sat up. He looked over his body, he's quite strong, strong enough to kill a human without needing to actually try, but his form had become atrophied from years of forced inactivity. He was locked into that pit to rot and shrivel until his body wasted away to nothing, Elfangor betrayed him, and locked him into that pit, he **MUST PAY**! Warlike knows what he must do next, take revenge on Elfangor, and kill every single last member of his kind on this planet! But before that he would need to spend some time regaining his former strength, yes, he needs to prepare, and recover._

 _And then, once his strength had returned, he would begin his crusade against the Andalites, and they will know fury like never before! Every single Andalite and human cursed with Andalite blood will be culled! He'll break their bones, then tear apart and devour them!_

 _"You have no idea what's coming to you, you should never have betrayed me," Warlike said with a smile before taking out an underwater respirator and putting it on, soundlessly_ _Warlike walked back into Lake Mead and vanished without a trace._


	13. X Test Flight

**Here is November's chapter, barely in time.**

 **EDIT: And for anyone who read this before, this is a major edit happening at the tail end of the chapter. Sorry about that, but i hope you enjoy the read.**

* * *

 _Test Flight_

* * *

Day 4, Morning

We were in the woods behind Cassie's barn, there _still_ wasn't any wind.

But that's fine, for the first time in all of history, humans were going to fly under our own power! Well, in technicality, not humans, but you get the idea. My heart was racing, I'm going to fly without a plane, parachute, or anything but my own body to keep myself from falling to the ground. I was both terrified and excited at the same time.

We stopped at a small clearing in the woods.

"This looks like as good a takeoff spot as any," I said.

"Alright, let's do it," Rachel said, stretching her arms.

"But we should be careful not to fly close together," Cassie pointed out. "Birds of Prey are normally solitary creatures, you don't see groups of them, especially comprising of different species."

((Good thing to keep in mind,)) I said offhandedly.

"Whoa, Jake man, was that you?" Marco said in shock. His eyes were wide open

"Yeah, what about it?" I asked.

"I heard your voice in my head but...it sounded so _different_ ," Marco explained.

"Yeah, I'm with Marco, for once," Rachel agreed, hands on her hips. "Your voice sounded so...clear, and less nasal."

I sputtered, so shocked that I was unable to properly formulate words. But it didn't take me long to give out my incredulous response. "Rach, my voice is _nasal_?"

"I-I think it kind of sounds hot..." Cassie said, I turned to look at her, my cousin's comment forgotten. Cassie was blushing, she scratched the back of her head.

"What are you guys talking about?" I asked them. "My voice has _always_ sounded like this, in my head and out!"

"Wait, I think I might know what's going on," Rachel said as she walked over to and leaned on a pine tree, lifting a branch that was in front of her face. "Did you know that we don't hear our voices as they come out of our mouth? We actually hear our voices in our throats, which is why we sound different on camera footage."

My eyebrows shot up, and my hand went to my chin as I thought about it.

"Huh, who knew?" Marco commented, then his eyes lit up. "Hey Jake, rehearse the opening narration of _The Dark Crystal_ in thought speech!"

"I don't think he knows that well enough," Cassie commented.

"Well, at least we now know that awesome Jake voice _is_ in your head. Just a figment of your imagination!"

((Alright, that's enough,)) I said in my voice. ((We're here to fly, not recite lines from 70s movies.))

"It came out in the 80s!" Marco said in an outraged tone of voice. " _The 80s!_ "

((Whatever,)) an undoubtedly female voice said, Rachel, judging by the tone.

"Alright..." Cassie said awkwardly while blushing. "Let's do this."

"So I'm on clothing bank duty...again," Marco said.

It didn't take us long to undress, and we ignored each other and looked at the opening in the trees above us. I pictured the animal I was going to turn into, envisioned it in my mind and said his name.

 _Osprey._

Once more I felt the changes begin with a sound like shifting sands. I looked at Rachel and Cassie, they were both turning into small feathery flying machines too. But Rachel was morphing the fastest, Cassie followed closely behind. I noticed that my changes were going by the slowest, but this doesn't surprise me. I only morphed this animal once before, a couple of minutes ago in the barn.

I felt the falling sensation as I turned my face to the opening, then again my lips and nose turned into a beak, and my hips realigned themselves until I was leaning over. My skin turned grey as tiny hairs came out all over my body except my lower legs. I felt a strange sizzling all throughout my body as I became lighter, my dense human tissue replaced by the lighter stuff birds are made from.

I diverted my attention away from myself just in time to see Rachel, her transformation seconds away from completion, let out a whoop in thought speech, and a screech as her Bald Eagle morph took to the skies.

My arms and hands shrivelled and my fingers fused into a single appendage, then the flight feathers poked out of my arms, like rows of knives. They grew longer in a very short time. My toes fused together and became bird talons, and my chest started expanding, the flight muscles there growing. My sight and hearing went out of service again temporarily, but when it returned they were both acute.

I saw that Cassie's transformation was complete, she jumped up and started flapping to the sky. For a minute I was surprised that Cassie was an Osprey as well, the same one as me in fact, she joined Rachel in the sun.

((Whoah, this is awesome!)) I heard an unfamiliar voice in my head, but who else could it belong to? Cassie.

I felt the changes complete themselves, and the mind of the Osprey returned, but this time I was in control. I spread my wings and began flapping up, up, and up towards the trees. With a feeling of ecstasy that grew with my altitude I rose into the air. I flapped, moving my wings as hard as I can, working my arms and chest with superhuman power, I was not used to exerting this much force, but to the Osprey this level of strain was trivial, it was hard, but he was experienced enough that flying was _easy_. What else should he expect from an act he performed every day?

"Fly my babies! Fly!" Marco cried out from the ground below. "They leave the nest so fast!"

As I flapped I rose above the trees, and immediately it hit me.

((I'm flying,)) I said in everyone's head, still unsure. ((I'm flying! Oh man, ha ha, I'm _flying_! Ha ha ha ha ha!))

It was glorious, the wind in my face, the elevation, a human part of me was scared, still scared, but the human fear of plummeting to my death was small, it was close to nothing, I knew I would be doing this often, so even that small twinge would only grow smaller in time. I wanted to rise, go higher up, I wasn't sure how, but the answer was right in front of me, I decided to trust the Osprey. He knew what to do, I spread my wings out and I felt the warmth rise under my wings, I felt myself rising up.

((Whoa-ho!)) I exclaimed.

I also noticed a sort of shimmer around me, heat.

((Hey, I see you caught a thermal!)) I heard Cassie's voice in my head.

(Huh, did I?)) I answered back.

* * *

 _Marco_

* * *

The only thing I could do was stand and watch, I climbed to the top of a tree and could catch glimpses of them. Their laughter and joy, it was so infectious that I ended up smiling for real myself. Seeing Jake and the others so… happy, made me regret not taking Elfangor up on his offer all the more. I wished nothing more than to be up there, with them.

I looked around myself and saw that I was alone, the only human being in this corner of the forest for quite some distance, other than my friends.

I looked back at the sky, trying to find the birds. More than any other moment in my life previously, I felt like a fool for refusing the power. Tobias and his dad said it was my choice and mine alone, and they respected it. But they also said that my choice wasn't permanent, I could change my mind anytime I wanted. Tobias is coming back with the cube a couple of days from now, according to the letter. I'll make the choice then. Though Mr. Head-in-the-Clouds also said we needed to prepare to fight these… Controllers, whatever they are.

But this is coming from a guy whose father literally died in his arms only a couple of days ago. I remember what happened to my mom, and that was bad enough, but Tobias? He was the one who pulled the trigger on the gun that killed him. Everybody takes loss differently, but Tobias' took it especially hard. I wouldn't blame Tobias if he arrives here later than he said. He can take his time, he needs it.

When I get the morphing technology there will be plenty of time for me to catch up.

But I really wish Tobias would hurry up. I have a lot of questions I would not like to wait on any longer than necessary.

What on Earth is even a Recorder? Is it an object, an archive, a person? Why do we need it? More importantly, why did Elfangor describe it as "The Last?" If these Andalites are an interstellar civilization, then what happened to the other ones?

I took out a small pocket book out of the back of my shorts and opened it up. I removed the pencil from the spiraling wire binding and started writing down my new questions.

 _I really hope I don't overwhelm Tobias when he comes back._

* * *

Day 5, Morning

I got up, brushed my teeth and combed my hair. I did all of the daily chores I usually do, and with all of that done I went downstairs.

Man, how long did Jake and the others spend flying up there?

I went down the stairs but as I did I noticed that Dad was on the phone. I stopped moving and just stayed there on the staircase.

"Are you serious?" He said.

"..."

"And why hasn't anyone in my department heard anything about this?"

"..."

"...None? No communications, like, _at all_?"

"..."

"It caused _how much_ damage?"

"..."

"No wonder the other ETs went silent."

I raised my eyebrows, _did ETCS locate the alien parasites Elfangor and Tobias warned us about?_

"..."

"There's only one?"

"..."

This is turning out to be a very interesting phone call. I felt bad for listening in, but this might be relevant to our coming fight.

"It entered human settlements unnoticed _how many times_?!"

"..."

"Jesus Christ, and here I thought North America had seen the last of the aliens when the Nartec vacated LA. How is it able to move unnoticed?"

"..."

The period the guy on the other end of the line was talking extended for a long time.

"I...I believe what you're saying and I've seen and heard many things that were just nuts, but this is beyond even that, this is...is...it's just _insane_!"

I snorted at my dad's usage of my catchphrase.

"Animorph? You're telling me that this creature is a shapeshifter? Why are you going out of your way to tell just _me_ this?"

 _Shapeshifter?_ Dad's word usage jolted the last of the sleep out of my system. _Are they tracking Tobias? Or an Andalite survivor?_

"..."

I leaned too hard on one foot and the wood creaked.

"Hold on, I have to hang up," then I heard my Dad walk around to the stairs and poke his head out.

"Good morning," I said with a smile.

"How much of that did you hear?"

I scratched the back of my head.

"Ah, right to you asking why nobody in your department heard about it."

He groaned and held the bridge of his nose for a little while. Then he hung up the phone and walked away.

"Table. _Now_ ," Dad said.

I walked down the stairs to meet my Dad, he was staring at the chair Mom used to sit in as I reached the bottom of the stairs, like usual. The sun was shining, lighting up our house with beams of light, complete with specks of dust floating in the air.

"What's up?" I asked, he turned to look me in the eye. He had the expression that indicated he was getting serious.

"One, you are not to tell a single soul anything about what you've just heard. This doesn't leave the house."

I nodded, that wouldn't be the first conversation I've had about this.

"Two, you do not tell a single soul anything, about what you just heard," Dad said in an even more deadly serious voice.

"Got it," I said.

"Good," Dad said, slouching over and taking a sigh of relief.

"There's an alien on the move, more powerful and deadly than anything on the world, and it's close by. It's heading away from us for now, but if it starts moving south towards us, we're getting out of here. understand?"

I nodded in agreement before Dad walked away from the table, he was already in his work clothes. He took his suitcase and left the house, now I really have a lot of questions to ask.

I held my chin in thought as my mind went into overdrive. I looked at the phone.

 _Maybe I should bug it?_ I thought. _See what more information would come up?_

I shook my head at the risk.

 _No_ , I decided. _When the fight against the Controllers begins I'll be breaking enough laws, but bugging a government official's phone? Bugging my Dad's phone? I can wait, i'll just wait until Tobias gets here. And I have a crapton of questions that need answering._

* * *

 **Well, hope you like this chapter, this was intense, wasn't it? But anyway please do leave your criticisms in the comments.**


	14. XI Filling The Deck, I

**After a day of flying through the sky as birds for the first time in their lives, Jake and his friends begin to realize the true gravity of their choice to accept Elfangor's power. The Animorphs decide to expand their morphing arsenal and begin to make plans on how to do so, but while they're in the process of doing so, Marco arrives with information that must** **be shared with his comrades.**

* * *

 _Filling the Deck I_

* * *

Day 5, Afternoon

I was helping Cassie muck the horse pen, it was a much cooler day and with a lot of cloud cover. The cloud cover made the stench more tolerable.

"Hey, Jake? I have a question."

I turned to see Cassie putting the shovel away, then drop the bucket of horse manure. She took her gloves off and put them up on the same rack the shovel was hanging on. She still had a lighter expression on her face, though by the tone of her voice, it's serious.

"Alright, shoot," I said as I moved my last bucket of manure to the designated dumping bin.

"When we start fighting the Controllers, shape shifting is our biggest advantage. If we're going to fight, and I mean actually _fight_ , then we have to start morphing bigger animals."

"Well, that is an inevitability," I agreed as I poured the manure in.

"And when we do, how are we going to get control of them? Agitating animals can make them aggressive, if one of us turns into a tiger or a bear, how can the rest of us wake the other one up?"

I dropped the bucket and looked at Cassie with a very concerned expression.

"I...didn't consider that," was the only thing that left my mouth. "Maybe-"

I was interrupted by the sound of the barn door opening.

"Knock knock," Rachel said, waltzing in with a backpack.

"Hey Rachel."

"Sounds like you were talking about something...is it the..." She had trouble finding the right words for it. "Mexican stuff?"

" _Mexican_?" Cassie asked, bewildered, I raised my eyebrows.

"I think we need a few more words," I told Rachel.

"You know, foreign activity? _Alien_ crap?"

"Ah," I said, finally getting it.

"Marco and I talked a bit yesterday, he said that we need to be prepared to hook up in a place where someone might hear us. We can't exactly mention extraterrestrials to outsiders, but they're an _especially_ hot topic, anyone who overhears our conversation may want to join in!"

"But don't we _want_ more people to join in?" Cassie asked. "Our group, I mean? We could use a few helping hands in this."

"No, we shouldn't," Rachel said. "Marco said it's too big of a security risk, and I agree. The Controllers can impersonate people so well that we have no way of being able to tell! And we shouldn't assume that their facade have any discernible weaknesses. We don't even know how we can get them out. But enough on that, were you talking about that kind of stuff when I came in?"

"Yeah, we were," I nodded, slapping my hands together. "We just got done cleaning the stables when Cassie brought up a problem we're _inevitably_ going to encounter in the morphing thing. Let's wait until Marco arrives."

"No," Rachel interrupted. "Marco says he's occupied, he can't come today."

"Okay then, I'll let Cassie explain it," I said putting my hand on her shoulder.

"Thanks Jake," Cassie said, turning to me and smiling. I got a feeling like butterflies in my stomach. "If we're going to fight we'll need meaner morphs than our current selection, a _lot_ meaner. Mean enough to cause some serious damage to human beings, lions, tigers, and bears. What do you think is going to happen if we try to wake each other up from _that_?"

Rachel sat down on the haybales, and her smile vanished.

"Oh, that is _definitely_ going to be an issue," Rachel huffed. "But Tobias is a morphing expert, he probably has a solution, even if it might be an unreasonable distance away, it's not like we can afford to let that to stop us!"

I nodded in agreement, "yeah. It's not like we can afford to let _anything_ stop us, but how much stopping power are we going to have? What advantages do we have other than the morphing?"

"Uh, a few more, actually," Rachel spoke up. "I don't know if you still remember, but...internal clocks and compasses, ludicrous pain tolerance? Have you guys actually gotten those quirks yet?"

I had forgotten about those.

"No," I said. "Other than the morphing, I haven't noticed anything different."

"I've been trying to activate the other powers," Rachel said. "Took a stroll through the woods the other day and got lost until I turned into a bird. Tried to use my watch function and arrived twenty minutes late to this morning's gymnastics meet. And I _don't_ want to repeat what I did to test my pain tolerance."

"Was Elfangor lying about that?" I wondered.

"I don't think so," Cassie said. "Maybe the other benefits need time to kick in? I mean, a lot of those functions are in our brains, I think the other abilities would have to arrive slower in order to prevent brain damage, or other negative side effects. That aside Elfangor said I was a...super morpher? I think that means I would be the first to start getting the other powers."

"Those are some good points," Rachel said. "So how are we-"

We were interrupted by the barn doors flying open. We all jumped away and looked out to our unexpected guest. He was sweaty and out of breath, having ran or biked a big distance quickly to get here.

"Marco?" Cassie said in surprise.

"I thought you said you couldn't come here?" Rachel accused.

"I...lied," Marco gasped out, he walked over to a barn wall and leaned on it. "There's something... I _have_ to tell you."

"Hey, easy," Cassie said, walking over to him. "Just catch your breath."

* * *

It had been at least ten minutes since Marco arrived. Cassie had put a cold and wet towel on Maro's head, and got him some water with ice.

Marco took a swig from the cup and set it down.

"Thanks for your hospitality Cass," Marco said, fanning himself with the journal he keeps with himself at all times. "You're a real friend."

"You're welcome. I'm happy to help anytime," my girlfriend said with a smile.

"Anyway, I don't want to keep you waiting any longer," Marco said, stretching his back.

"What did you find?" Rachel asked with interest, her hands on her hips and her foot tapping the wooden floor.

"This morning, I overheard my Dad on the phone with ETCS. Talking about some...new stuff."

"Aren't you under strict orders to not speak a word of that kind of crap?" I questioned.

"Yes, but that was before the alien ghost town incident. Speaking of aliens; Dad mentioned a new one that they've been tracking in North America, a hostile one. I thought they had found a lead on The Controllers until he mentioned it was a shape-shifter."

I felt the hair on my back raise. A shape-shifter? A morpher, like us?

"Another Andalite?" Rachel asked.

"Visser 3?" I suggested.

Marco shook his head. "Not sure. If the Controller's leader _was_ tagged, I doubt very strongly he would have allowed the tracker to stay on him, he would have had it removed. And whatever the creature is, Dad said it's close, it's heading North, away from us. But if the Animorph turns south towards our location, Dad said he'd take me and leave the town, possibly out of state."

I raised my eyebrows in shock, we can't afford to let that happen. Marco may not have the morphing power, but he's one of us, just as important a part of the group as the rest of us. The sounds of the animals in their cages went uninterrupted for some time.

"Wait, _Animorph_?" Rachel snorted. "Is that what you're really calling it?"

"I don't think the creature's name is something we should focus on, Rachel," Cassie pointed out.

"That aside, it's the ETCS's word, not mine!" Marco said defensively, raising his hands. "If I'm being honest, it sounds like a name a 2nd grade Sci-Fi book monster would have. Moral of the story is; if it sounds stupid but works, then it isn't stupid."

"I agree," I said, standing rigid as a nail. "We should be _very_ worried about this. Whatever it is, this Animorph is apparently dangerous enough for Marco's Dad to seriously consider just taking him and leaving."

Marco and Rachel nodded in agreement.

"But how do we know he's even an enemy? Or an alien at all?" Cassie pointed out. "It might actually be Tobias, and we don't know enough about this creature to know what to expect."

"Yeah," I said. "I don't think it's worth it to worry about this thing, and as you said, Marco, it's heading away from us. We can ask Tobias about it when he comes back. And we have a more immediate issue to deal with," I said, turning to our host.

"What kind of issue? You didn't get _caught_ did you?" Marco asked, leaning forward and using the tone he gets when someone does something stupid.

"No, it's another problem," Rachel said. "Don't get your panties in a wod."

"No, you," Marco retorted.

"Go ahead Cassie, lay it on him," Rachel said, walking to the haybales and lied down on them.

"Okay, you know how we have to wake each other up when we morph an animal for the first time, right?"

"Yep," Marco said. "That is somewhat obvious."

"Yeah," Cassie said, not missing a beat. "Well, if we're going to actually fight, then we're going to have to acquire more animals, _dangerous_ animals. As in tigers, bears, lions."

"Oooooh," Marco said in realization. "I see the problem now. We'll have to get them under control, but provoking something that mauls humans and kills them every year is _not_ a good idea."

"Yeah," I nodded my head. "Cassie's barn isn't exactly fit to contain a rampaging gorilla."

"No kidding," Marco said, laughing, before losing his humor completely. "But the Animorph wasn't the only thing I came to tell you about. I found something really bad going on."

"Why didn't you tell us this?" Rachel demanded.

"I assumed you might already know about it, judging by your talk of 'An Immediate Issue,'" Marco explained putting air quotes around the last three words of his sentence.

"This morning I decided to get a break from all of this morphing alien crazy weirdness going on. So I just decided to attend a community group, but got a lot more than I bargained for."

Marco took a deep breath before continuing.

"This group is called The Sharing, and I attended a meeting just this morning."

I froze up and looked at Marco, _The Sharing?_ Tom's a part of the youth branch of that group, practically the spokesperson. I looked at his face to see if there was any humor, to see if Marco's joking. But his eyes were dead serious, he knew. No, no, it might not mean anything.

"It seemed like good community fun, the kids with their parents were having this awesome pool party at the Y. It's very obvious why the group's so popular. But then I noticed that the building where the indoor pool was had been blocked off from the rest of the group. Only the Full Members, kids _and_ adults, of the Sharing were allowed in. Tom entered the building, someone who I think is his girlfriend in tow. I wanted to get in due to that place having better stuff, and so I waited until someone else was entering, a big strong adult dude. I hid behind his body so the person who was gatekeeping wouldn't notice, it worked perfectly."

Marco then started looking down.

"I went in totally unnoticed, it really does seem like nobody notices Latinos, I followed the guy and kept sneaking. Then we reached the pool area, but _nobody_ was in there, _nobody_ was swimming, the fountains and water pumps weren't even turned on! And no, they weren't undergoing maintenance."

Nobody? That smells _very_ off.

"I knew something was up and stayed quiet, I moved with the big man because I didn't want to get caught. We reached the YMCA's gym, and there were rows upon rows of chairs, it was obvious someone was going to be speaking, everyone in there..."

Marco stopped talking for a second, trying to catch his breath.

"Everyone in there had these dead, lifeless expressions, this room was totally different from the rest of the get-together, there wasn't any talking, totally silent, like robots. There were plenty of chairs left empty, so I took a seat without being noticed. Then the speaker came in, some guy in a business suit using a cane and wearing these strange shoes. When this guy came in everyone's eyes were on him, even Tom. Then he began talking about things...they didn't say anything explicit, something about moving the cargo to a certain location."

"Oh here we go," Rachel muttered.

"The kind of stuff that was discussed is bad," Marco said. "Really _really_ bad. I don't remember all of what was said, but at best The Sharing is a human trafficking ring, and at worst a front for the Controllers."

"If it is a front for the Controllers, wouldn't that _still_ make it a human trafficking group?" Cassie pointed out.

"Jake-man," Marco said, turning to look me in the eye. "Tom was _there_ , on the stage. He's-"

"No," I said, ending the discussion.

"Jake," Marco started. "I'm your friend, and I'm not going to abandon you under _any_ circumstances. But you can't _just_ deny it."

" _No_ ," I said.

"How do you know that?" Marco said. "Tobias said in his letter that they could be _anyone_ , why not my Dad? Why not Tom?"

"Jake, for once I agree with Marco," Rachel said, holding her hand out. "We can't afford to assume anyone is innocent until proven guilty, it's not American, but we have to go by the opposite; guilty until proven innocent. It's safer to assume that _everyone_ around us is infested, we can't afford to make exceptions to that rule."

I turned to Rachel, and opened my mouth, but before anything came out Cassie interrupted.

"Guys, I think we should stop talking about this," Cassie said. "Whether or not Tom is infested doesn't actually matter, we don't have a real for sure yes or no answer to that. We can investigate it later, but I think Jake has to be a little more careful from now on."

I closed my mouth.

"Agreed," Marco added. "It'll have to wait. And I think it would pay for you to visit the Gardens real quick, as soon as possible."

"But didn't you hear what Cassie said?" I asked. "If we try to morph those animals, we would hurt or even kill someone!"

Marco nodded in agreement, a smile on his face. "Yeah, you can't morph them until Tobias returns with a solution, but that wouldn't stop you from only _acquiring_ them. Right?"

I stood there in silence, feeling like an idiot. I looked around and saw most everyone wearing the same awkward expression I was.

"I think I have an updated map for the Gardens," Cassie said, beginning to walk out the barn door. "I'll go get it, and Jake?"

"Yeah," I asked.

"You wouldn't mind taking the poo out, would you?"

"Sure," I said. "I'd rather be shovelling manure with you than going to...to...uh, a spa without you."

Rachel snorted, she tried to hold it back but it made my awkwardness all the more noticeable.

"Winnie the Poo! Winnie the Poo!" Marco sang while laughing. "He's the bear that neither takes a crap, and he shovels it out! Shovels it out!"

* * *

Day 3, Evening

It was a silent night in the forest, some miles north of where the summer camp Jake, Marco, Cassie, and Rachel went to a pit had been dug. Inside the hole there was a body, wrapped in a green fabric until not a single inch on the entire body was visible. In the body's hands was what looked like a plate made of brass. Tobias stood next to the pit, his hands covered in dirt, looking down at the fallen titan in his grave.

"I dedicated all of my heart, mind, and soul to helping you and the others overcome this. I fought with _everything_ I had," Tobias said in a voice hoarse from two days of mourning and preparing for the funeral.

" _I'm sorry, I wasn't enough_ ," Tobias said as he dropped a seed wrapped in a wet rag on his father's chest and started to push the earth on his last family member. No, Tobias would not burn the body this time, he didn't care if something would desecrate his grave and harvest his DNA, no. Tobias observed the rites and laid his father to rest, then after he made the ground look like it was never disturbed Tobias flew into the night as a Great Horned Owl. There were no words, not even in telepathy, there was nobody to hear them.

He was on a mission, the torch had been passed on. Tobias he knew his friends would not be enough to fight to the Controllers, not yet. In his Father's database, he realized there was a lot of information he wasn't told. He would have to tread carefully from now on.


	15. XII Filling The Deck, II

**An unexpected amount of intel has fallen into Jake's hands, on top of rumors of a powerful morph capable contender on the horizon, Marco also brings news that The Controllers may be active in their very own hometown** **. But in light of all that they have discussed, it is decided that the acquisition of battle morphs worthy of the coming violence is their top priority.**

* * *

 _Filling the Deck II_

* * *

Day 6, Morning

I like sunlight, and fresh air, and hiking. Overall there's _something_ about the outdoors, about taking a walk or sitting down in the woods that relaxes me, but I'm not going hiking today. Today we're visiting the Gardens, more specifically, their zoo, a collection of the most exotic animals humanity could capture and sustain in a healthy if enclosed environment. We're here to do a little more than _just_ look at the animals. We have to touch them.

But touching the animals we want as battle morphs is easier said than done in a zoo filled with hundreds of people. especially when you have familiar faces nearby. I've read a list of all the animals in the Gardens that are worthy as a battle morph. I've decided to acquire several, we can't be too limited in the scope of our abilities. The first stop for me is the elephants, and all of the animals that the keepers will allow us to touch, if we're lucky they might let us pet the dolphins.

"Thanks for the invitation, midget," Tom said his nickname for me as we locked our bikes on the bike rack. "Seriously, thanks. I've been wanting to see that Komodo Dragon exhibit for a really long time now."

"Sure thing bro," I said with a smile, shaking hands with him. "Just be careful not to get burnt to a crisp?"

"I think Cassie's the one you should thank," Marco contested, cracking his knuckles. "She heroically convinced her parents to give her some discount passes to share."

It was a crowded place, and there were a good number of bikes on the rack here as well, Rachel and Marco have to be around here somewhere.

((Hey, Marco,)) I spoke up in thought speak suddenly. I turned to look at him.

((Don't worry, I'm only sending my thoughts to you,)) I reassured in a voice that sounded more powerful than it normally is. Then again my thought speak voice sounded way more serious and powerful than the one my friends are used to. Marco started walking slower than normal, I matched his pace.

((Me and Cassie tested it out on her parents, we can choose to only be heard by each other, and whoever wishes to hear us.))

 _That is so sick!_ Marco mouthed silently.

((I know we're here on a mission, but let's enjoy this, alright? Just us, together as a group of friends. This is probably going to be the last really fun time we'll be able to have together.))

"Even with someone who is a possible Controller?" Marco whispered to me.

((Let's ignore that,)) I said, wrapping my arm around his shoulder. ((Even though he _may_ or _may not_ be a controller, Tom's still my brother.))

I finished the conversation as we approached the gate where the Park officials are scanning tickets.

"Are Rachel and Cassie in on this?" He asked.

"Yeah, she brought Melissa and Jordan too," I said. "We're going to have a good time."

"With a parasite as a chaperone," Marco concluded sarcastically under his beath.

It didn't take us long to get in the Gardens, and when we did Marco saw something very strange.

"Wait, IS THAT A TATTOO SHOP?" He said in disbelief.

"What?" I asked, looking to where Marco was pointing, a hotdog stand. "Oh ha ha, very funny!"

Next to the hotdogs were the girls, Rachel, Cassie, Melissa, and Jordan, sitting on a bench next to it.

"What's up docs?" Jordan piped out.

"Hello nurses," Marco said, not skipping a beat, then he froze when he realized what just transpired. "Oh...oh, I'm sorry. That was...I'm very sorry," Marco said quietly.

"Ignoring _that_. Let's do it," Rachel said, walking over to the rides.

And we enjoyed that day very much, we rode most of the rides. Laughing, this was the last fun thing we did before the fight to change Earth's fate began.

But throughout it all, I had the feeling that I had already left and joined the battle. My favorite rollercoaster, The Purgator, was still wonderful, we twisted and turned, someone threw up on the ride. It was some very good fun, but that didn't have the speed we got by dive bombing as a bird of prey. While I was a bird, I felt the acceleration, the wind ruffling my feathers, but somewhat sort of _didn't_ feel it, if that makes sense. I enjoyed the roller coaster ride more than I expected. The house of mirrors distorted our bodies into strange looking shapes, but the effect was made even more weird because of how much warping me and my friends had gone through without needing mirrors.

We rode a Casino themed Tilt-A-Whirl named Fortuna, and a Yoyo Swing ride called Ring Around the Rosie, it doesn't matter how girly the ride looks with the flowers painted on, it's awesome. But the fun always has to end eventually, the sun can't shine forever.

* * *

Day 6, Noon

Our stint on the amusement park side of the Gardens ended when we ate lunch at a pavilion. We had fun, burgers, soda and music, Jordan couldn't stand caffeinated drinks, so she had a Hi-C. Marco teased her a little bit about it, but that was it. The ice cream machine was broken, and the fries were _horrible_ for some inexplicable reason, good thing Melissa brought Doritos.

Eating is just the same as it always has been, but not really. Despite the strange device in my throat, I swallow food normally, unless I want to save something to go into my biomass reserves. The knowledge that I can scarf down biomass endlessly was something that made all of my eating experiences very different.

((Jake, I think we need to go,)) Cassie said as we put our plates on a cart.

((Yeah, Cassie's right,)) Rachel agreed. ((It's time we started the mission. We've had our fun for long enough.))

((I agree,)) I said to them privately.

"Hey guys," I said to the rest of the group as we got out of the pavilion, putting our plates, silverware, and trash away. "Wanna go see the animals?"

"Finally," Tom said, and started the march towards the animal section of the Gardens.

"We'll split up from the rest of you guys," Marco said, waving goodbye. "We're going to try to find the dolphins."

It took us little time to lose Melissa, Tom, and Jordan. But we were walking to the Zoo, me and Cassie were in front, holding hands.

"Hey Cassie, serious question," Marco piped up. "Would the Zoo employees allow us to pet the dolphins?"

"Miles for sure would," Cassie said. "you want to acquire them?"

"We're going to need aquatic morphs," Marco said. "Humans are the dominant species on land, well, excluding aliens. If we're going to fight then we're probably going to have to go aquatic, and when we do it's not off the table that we'll encounter Nartec somewhere down the road."

"Nartec? I thought we were focusing on fighting _them_?" Rachel pointed out. "Didn't the Nartec leave LA and the Northeastern Pacific?"

"They left LA, but that doesn't mean a few didn't stick around to keep an eye on us. But either way we'll need to get good sea legs."

"Yeah, we should definitely add acquiring dolphins to our bucket list," Cassie said. "Have you decided on your battle morph yet, Marco?"

Marco looked away, scratching the back of his head. He blew through his mouth before answering, "Uh, I can't think of any that I set my mind on. And Tobias said that in order to be effective we have to aim for versatility. What about you guys?"

"Hmmm," I wondered.

"I'm a Grizzly Bear," Rachel decided, wearing that stubborn expression of hers that said she's not budging. "They're big, they cause massive damage, and can take out anything in their path."

"So you're going to be the tank?" Marco said.

"If by the tank, you mean the guy that 'Takes damage and deals damage,' then yes," Rachel agreed.

Everyone was silent for a bit as we made our way to the dolphin tank, we were quite a ways into the Savannah part of the Gardens' Zoo. Marco and Rachel were waiting for either me or Cassie to respond. I opened my mouth to answer but Cassie spoke first.

"I haven't decided," Cassie said. "I think I'm just going to be in a support role. Maybe a wolf? Give you guys backup wherever it's needed."

"That sounds solid," I agreed.

"So, Jake, what are you going to turn into whenever you want to wreck stuff?"

"Hmm," I thought about it. "I want something fast, able to hold its own, tough, and hard to take down."

"A Komodo Dragon?" Cassie suggested. "It has a huge amount of power, is incredibly tough to takedown, its scales are super tough, and it has a nasty bite."

"But it's a _reptile_ , cold blooded," I pointed out. "I don't want something that would grind to a halt mid-battle when the wind gets chilly, and how do we know the lethal bacteria in its mouth will be included in the morph?"

"Hm, those are good points," Cassie said, scratching her chin.

"Cassie's a support, Rachel's a tank...lion, yeah, I'll be a lion," I decided.

"So, what do you guys think Tobias' solution to the problem of our battle morphs mauling each other when we try to wake each other up is?" Marco put forward. "If you ask me, I'd say I really don't want to be the first to die, or kill any of you when I go George of the REAL Jungle."

Rachel opened her mouth to retort something when we heard an animal get especially vocal. My cousin's attention was drawn to a spot behind us. I was the first one to turn around and look at what had caught her attention. There was a crowd around that pen, and there was a Zoo employee allowing people to feed and touch the creature.

"Hey Cass?" Rachel asked. "I think I may have found a solution to the battle morph problem."

"Really?" Marco said, with an incredulous smile on his face. He was laughing until he noticed what Rachel was looking at that and his jaw dropped. "No, no way. Getting the right materials to morph birds was hard enough. But that? No, it can't be done!"

"Whether or not it will work depends on the answers to one question," Rachel turned to face Cassie.

"Okay. What is it?" Cassie asked.

"How many animals can hurt an African Elephant?"

* * *

Day 4, Twilight

 _There was nothing that I could do_ , Tobias justified in his head as he waited on the roof. _He never bothered to leave any other avenue for contact._

It was a car shop, where mechanics repair, upgrade, and modify vehicles to perform better, or perform to their standards. Some cars could even be assembled from scratch in places like this, he noted that one group of teens had their tires removed so that as they drove sparks would cover the road. Tobias blew through his nose in a sad, silent echo of a laugh at that immature teenage stupidity he so dearly wishes he could've enjoyed.

The sun was setting and the employees were leaving, the store very much closed. Everyone who worked there filed out of the place, they all said their goodbyes to each other and parted ways, entering their cars, all except one, he didn't have a car, and thus had to walk home. He went a different way than the others, into an alley that was seemingly abandoned. He moved in the dying daylight to intercept him, he leapt off of the rooftop into the neighbouring carwash. It took nothing for him to silently jump across the gap in the rooftops where the alleyway was, he landed on the roof of an abandoned run down house and without missing a beat dropped on to the brown picket fence, standing with both feet perched on top of a round-edged plank.

He heard the sound of his footsteps come closer, his walking style was much more careless than Tobias' own stride, but most of that can be attributed to his limp. He wasn't even walking on the front ends of his feet. Then he appeared, he was wearing a windbreaker jacket that barely reached to his waist, and his clothes were stained with grease. He walked past Tobias without saying a word, The Mechanic turned left in front of the house, towards his home, and disappeared from Tobias' view.

"Don't pretend you didn't notice me," Tobias spoke in a quiet and even voice as he deactivated his cloak and like a ghost, soundlessly landed on the ground for the first time in days.

The person Tobias was stalking to had stopped, he turned around and leaned on the picket fence. His face was gaunt and pale, the skin around his eyes dark bags, the man was in his early 20s, wore his hair long, which was starting to turn grey far earlier than it should be. His amber eyes were filled with the expression of a man who was meeting with a friend one too many times.

"I already told you," the mechanic declared tiredly as he scratched his head as the street lamp turned on, it was flickering. The Department of Transportation was being incredibly taxed by rebuilding Los Angeles, and other areas that were damaged by alien assaults, but there was no reason to repair a streetlight on a road this desolate anyway. "Stop wasting your time, I can't do it."

"So we can't even hang out for old time's sake, Ben?" Tobias asked, his hands splayed out.

"No," The Mechanic said firmly. "We had agreed. And please, just don't call me that."

"Ben..." Tobias said, desperation leaking into his voice and face. "Please, about your Father-"

"If we really are going to have this talk, I don't think it's a good idea to have it in a place like this."

Tobias nodded and Ben resumed his walk home, it had taken them both forty minutes to get to Ben's house, a run-down, decrepit place that was barely kept from falling apart. The daylight was gone, which gave the house an eerie atmosphere. Ben took his key and unlocked the door, when he entered the floorboards creaked with his every step. Tobias was taken aback at how _sparse_ the entire place was, wallpaper peeling in some places, cobwebs and dust was everywhere. No pictures, no special rugs, nothing.

Ben moved his hand to besides the door, to turn on the lights. But his hand returned with what looked like an oil lamp, he pressed a button and with a click it turned on.

"Please forgive me with the sparse accommodations," Ben said abashedly as he closed the front door, locking it again. "It's not an accident, I live as low maintenance as possible. It's better to be ready to leave everything I have behind if I don't have much to leave behind to begin with. Ever since we split, I always figured you'd come back someday."

The pair entered the living room, an equally dusty area, the only things in there was a couch, a small TV, and a large table covered with various items that were of mechanical nature, the table and its contents however were never left untouched for more than two days.

"Forgive me for not believing everything you say," Tobias said. "But you were the one who had the biggest sweet tooth out of all of us, and loved luxury. Are you sure there isn't another reason for such a...spartan living space? Even the ghost town I stayed in for the last month was more lively than this place!"

Ben laughed, a smile forming on his face for the first time. "I never upgraded my dig-out because I want to see the look on your face when I show you."

"The look on my face says I'm very surprised and somewhat concerned," Tobias said as Ben walked over to his couch, and began messing with one of the cushions.

"Wrong answer friend," Ben said as he began pulling. "Your face says you are shocked, pleasantly so."

Tobias noticed that Ben wasn't pulling on the cushion, he was pulling something _out_ of it. It was a large grey-black case, a large suitcase, nothing special about it at first glance.

"Did you seriously sow a Z-space Storage Gate into a couch seat?"

"Yes," Ben said as he finished pulling the case out. The Mechanic rubbed a very specific part of the case with his index finger fast enough for his finger and the leather of the case to start getting hot. "It's my skill with technology from the Old World, and my love of tinkering and maintaining it that caused me to gravitate towards a job as a mechanic. compared to what I normally work with, everything that goes in that car shop and the tools I use to work on them are _mind-numbingly_ primitive."

Then the bottom of the case snapped and a hidden compartment fell out, the case was now suddenly three times as big as it was when Ben brought it out.

Tobias smiled and laughed, "Did you seriously make that suitcase bigger on the inside? What do you have in there?"

The Mechanic dropped the case by the couch, and that was when Tobias noticed that it had new opening mechanisms, adjusted for its increase in size.

"The thing I wanted to see your face when you set your eyes upon it," Ben smiled as he opened it.

Tobias' eyes widened into round moons when he saw it. Inside the case was cash, dozens of bundles of hundred dollar bills.

"By The Ellemist," Tobias stuttered.

"Yep," Ben said, his hands making a 'you got me' gesture. " _That_ is the reason why I live like a Spartan, everything I get in excess goes in there."

"How much did you put in that case? That's easily a hundred grand!"

"To be honest I lost count," Ben said, scratching the back of his head and straightening up to look his old friend in the eye, deadly serious.

"Surely you couldn't have gotten it all by working at that car shop?"

"You'd be surprised at how little I had to fix my appearance to get the job. I already looked way older than I really was, didn't matter that it was two months until my fifteenth birthday. Forged an ID, and I've been making money there ever since."

The Mechanic closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

" _We had_ _agreed_ ," Ben repeated, his voice strained and deadly serious. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes again. "We either join our parents on their crusade, or we disband and stay hidden at all costs until the violence blows over."

Ben stopped talking to look down and put his hand on his ruined right leg as he sat. "My decision had already been made for me a long time ago, Arbacan, as was yours. If you need it you can have all of the money in the case, and whatever device you need me to put together at the moment, but that is all I can offer."

"Triysol is _dead_ ," Arbacan spat out the terrible words half without thinking.

At the news Ben's eyes widened and his entire body went rigid from shock. A disbelieving expression melted into his face, his stoic mask shattered. The room was dead silent except for the ticking of the clock on the wall above the TV for a good minute as Ben processed the bomb that was just dropped.

"Triysol... _dead?"_ Ben asked in disbelief, struggling to process what he had heard. "No, no...How? How can Triysol be...Father...he survives _every..._!"

Ben stuttered in shock as grief overwhelmed him, he collapsed on the couch, his face broken into a mask of despair.

"I...there wasn't even anything left to say goodbye to, was there?"

"No. I'm sorry," Arbacan said, walking towards his friend, stepping around the massive case. Ben's grief melted from his face and it was replaced by an emotion he couldn't identify, a very dark one.

"Who did this?" Ben growled, a completely different person, a creature hungry for blood. The light cast by the 'oil lamp' cast brutal shadows over his face, making him look like a darker figure than he actually was. "It was _The Beast_ wasn't it?"

"NO!" Arbacan shouted as he shook his head, hard.

"No," Arbacan repeated, quieter. "The Beast is gone, it fell with the rest of its people on this world."

"The explosion in Dixie National Forest, that _was_ you," Ben said in surprise. "Is it true? Their Citadel's _finally gone_?"

Tobias nodded.

"So that's how," Ben whispered, smiling sadly as he looked out of his window, at the night sky. "The blood of the Ellemist served him well. I'm glad to see that the fight is finally looking up."

Arbacan winced as he looked away, hesitating to say the rest of it.

"So, did you-" Ben asked.

"The Citadel is gone," Tobias interrupted him, his tears beginning to rise up. But he wasn't going to cry, once he started he wouldn't stop for a long time. No, he already gave voice to that horrible, wailing, aching pain in his chest that just won't stop, will _never_ stop. "But it doesn't _matter_ , I so desperately wish Triysol _was_ the only casualty. Tepin, Blajis, Skartauga, Lurdatha, Mitiriol, Galratun, Haurok, Elsinir, even my Father, _everyone's_ dead!"

Ben looked down to face Arbacan, an expression of horror on his face.

"Ellemist have mercy...please...no... _no_ ," Ben managed to gasp out with his face even paler than usual. His voice had turned hollow carried by the winds that were blowing hard this night.

"No!" Ben founding his resolve, he turned to look Tobias in the eye. "This doesn't add up. You've fought those abominations before, I was even there one of those times. Those monsters are insanely tough, but their numbers have been whittled down. Not even the four hundred remaining in the Citadel could withstand a dedicated all-out assault with them at full strength!"

"It wasn't _them_. We took down The Citadel without only three casualties, or at least, _they_ did," Arbacan clarified. "But I was remaining at a rendezvous point, preparing to treat the wounded. They were ambushed by another enemy on the way there, one we know nothing about."

"An ambush? But with the Citadel gone, there's no sentient creature that far inland of North America other than the humans."

"Yes, there is. They were a race of parasites, with scores of humans under their command...they just _unloaded_ on them," Arbacan said. "They annihilated each other, my Father barely managed to escape with his life. Four days ago, a remnant of The Citadel's war machine found us...and neither came out of the confrontation alive."

"The Cube! Tell me you at least managed to recover the Cube!" Ben asked his younger friend desperately.

"Yes, I did," this elicited a sigh of relief from Ben. "Dad managed to ensure that everybody believed it was destroyed in the base. All the data they had collected from studying it was erased, up to the backups of the backups."

"And now you have it on you," Ben concluded, his pale face serious, his eyes grim amber orbs staring at Arbacan. "You're here to repair my body so I may operate The Forge. Am I correct?"

"Yes."

"How many of those with the Old Blood are there left on the continent? Sixty? Eighty? Saying this is going to be a difficult fight is a huge understatement. I'm in, I'll join you, but if we are to overcome this parasitic threat, I must return to the Sanctuary without delay."

"No, not the Sanctuary," Arbacan handed his comrade a slip of paper. "We're going to set up our base at these coordinates, a set of coordinates that could use your skill at refurbishing technology."

Ben took the paper and scrutinized it.

"A bunker? Yes...yes I can definitely bring that to operational status, it'll take some time though. Wait, this is close to that city you were hidden in! Why are you coming back _here_ , of all places?"

"Before his death, Father declared that in order to triumph against these Controllers, we cannot afford to limit our recruitment options."

"So we're giving the power to _Pure Humans_?" Ben asked incredulously. "Those are the people who...this is madness! They know nothing of what's beyond the atmosphere, they don't know the truth, they don't have the skills and the fortitude needed to undertake this task! And many of them don't even trust us enough not to try to sic ETCS on us if we dared reveal our true nature!"

"That doesn't matter, we'll teach them. And we _need_ the numbers," Arbacan said, smiling. "There's already a group of four that Father managed to secure the loyalty of, they won't betray us. And besides, it shouldn't matter if they're of a Pure or Old heritage. The time has come to allow new blood join the battle."


	16. XIII Filling The Deck, III

**An unexpected amount of intel has fallen into Jake's hands, on top of rumors of a powerful morph capable contender on the horizon, Marco also brings news that The Controllers may be active in their very own hometown** **. But in light of all that they have discussed, it is decided that the acquisition of battle morphs worthy of the coming violence is their top priority. Meanwhile Tobias travels, gathering what reinforcements he can**

* * *

 _Filling the Deck III_

* * *

Day 6, Afternoon

 _It was midday in the zoo, everyone was milling about in the warm summer sunlight. Rachel though had one particular destination in mind, the wide grassy enclosure where the elephants are kept. People were close to the Elephants, feeding them, petting them. Rachel was interested in petting the elephants, she walked up and waited her turn. She saw the elephant, the biggest land animal currently alive on Earth._

 _"Here you go young lady," the employee supervising the interaction between pachyderm and human gave her a couple of bananas._

 _"Thanks," Rachel said smiling._

 _"That'll be ten bucks."_

 _Rachel looked at the zoo worker with a betrayed look on her face. The man took a picture with a camera hanging from his neck on a black strap._

 _The guy laughed, "Just kidding, you go on right ahead."_

 _Jake and Marco awkwardly put their wallets back in their pockets while Cassie shook her head._

 _"Really, Steve?" Cassie admonished the worker._

 _Rachel, with the fruit in hand, walked up to and gave them to the elephant. The elephant was a bull, not the biggest in the pen, but they were all big enough. When Rachel gave the elephant the fruit she touched his trunk and focused. The elephant slowed down and relaxed, his trunk stayed there, the two of them locked eyes, and while neither could speak words to each other, an understanding passed between them. It took some time before they could disconnect._

 _"Thanks," Rachel said, whether she was saying it to the worker, the elephant, or both, who knows?_

 _Then Jake walked forward and acquired the elephant's DNA, the animal reacted just as docile as he did with Rachel._

 _((Who's going to pull you out when you test morph a Grizzly?)) Jake explained to Rachel before she could ask._

 _"That went a bit better than I thought it would," Marco said. "Now what's the next part of your plan, Xena? How are you going to get the meat needed to...cook up an African barbeque?"_

 _Rachel gave Marco a sideways stare, smiling knowingly. "I think you already know."_

 _Marco gave Rachel a cautious look. "That's going to be dangerous, if you get caught that'll mean we'll have a lot more trouble than we know how to deal with."_

* * *

 **Ten minutes Earlier**

* * *

"I mean, yes, you _can_ morph an elephant," Cassie said. "But the big question is... _how_? I'm stumped on this. I have no clue how you'll be able to acquire the mass necessary to _morph_ an _elephant_."

"I have a will, so I'll find a way," Rachel stubbornly declared, I shook my head in defeat. How is she going to do that?

"I admire your enthusiasm," Marco stated before quietly exploding in a voice dripping with disbelief. "A for effort. There's big boned, then there's packing on the pounds, and then we get to the level of stupid you're trying to achieve! How on Earth are you going to get 7 and a half tons of extra meat to put on your chicken wings?"

"Did you say you needed to get some meat?" I heard a voice call out. I jumped and looked at the source of it. It was a kid from school, big, tall, square chin, blond hair, a major player of the Middle School football team, soon to be high school. Jacob Skridge is a thick skinned guy from what I heard, and not somebody I judged as being able to sneak up on us as well as he just did.

"If you want something to barbeque, you could get some from my place," Jacob offered.

Rachel walked behind the newcomer and looked at Marco. She mouth the words, ' _Security breach much?_ '

"Thanks for the offer, but we're fine," I said as Marco shook his head.

"It's on discount," Jacob said, scratching the back of his head. He sighed and continued, "you see, my family's meat shop isn't doing as well as it should, and it's closing down...today's the last day it'll be able to remain open in fact."

My eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"What?" Rachel said. "Why is that? Your place gets dozens of people every day. You're not short on customers at all, everyone loves your stuff. Why is it closing down?"

"Yeah," Cassie agreed. "I may not like watching the..preperation for that meat, but I've tried some of your family's products, you make _really_ good burgers."

Jacob nodded, a proud smile coming into his eyes. "Yeah, we do. The Skridge Meatshop always held high standards."

A dejected look returned to his face.

"If you want to know _why_ my family's meat shop is closing, our P.O.T.U.S. passed a new tax at the beginning of the year. Every store that sells and prepares raw meat has to give the government a cut now, and apparently that cut consists of too much of my family's money."

"Ah, that's a shame," Marco said. "I'm sorry for your loss, but at least ETCS has more money to work with."

Jacob flinched and an annoyed look came on his face, but his eyes betrayed his anger. "My family's meat shop, which _everyone_ loves, is _closing down_. My dad and older siblings are going to _lose their jobs_. And you respond by telling me that I should feel better because the ETCS gets a bigger paycheck?"

"They defend the entire planet from alien aggression," Rachel bit back. "When the ETs push for more of our land, the ETCS are the ones who push _back_. They're the ones who fight tooth and nail and bleed gallons of blood to retake every inch of ground they've stolen from us!"

"I have nothing against ETCS, but they're doing perfectly fine. The situation's looking up, the invaders went silent, the Nartec left North America, and LA is being repopulated. That aside, regardless of whether or not they need it, how do we know that extra money's even _going_ to ETCS?" Jacob questioned.

Marco opened his mouth to quip back, but his eyes widened as he processed Jacob's words.

"Those are some very good points," Cassie entered the conversation. "But we really have no way of knowing if that money's going to the defense funds."

"Yeah, that's true," Marco said, scratching the back of his head. "And hey, I really am sorry about your store. If it helps, I'd like to buy a few products today. Are we cool?"

Jacob's face and eyes softened, "Yeah, we're cool. Thanks for understanding. This is the last time I'll have the money to be able to go here for a while. See you later."

And like that he walked away, his blue shirt fading in the crowd.

"Like Marco said," Rachel piped up, quieter than before. "Nothing's stopping me from just _acquiring_ the elephant, right?"

"Yeah," Marco agreed. "Nothing's stopping you. As a matter of fact, let's go on ahead."

* * *

Day 5, Evening, 10 P.M.

The sky was pitch black, the city was on the smaller side, it doesn't get enough traffic for the lights to stay on after sundown. The city was also in an area that had been hit hard by Nartec bomb attacks, so no neighboring settlements were able to light up the darkened sky for miles around. The city survived, but is still struggling.

Most of the staff of the hospitals' staff were away for the night, so nobody was expecting the visitor they would receive. That's just the way Tobias prefers it.

It didn't take him long at all to find his next target, but his urgency in his journey was apparent. He hadn't slept since he rallied Ben to his cause, who's on his way to the Bunker now. Maybe he's already there, preparing it for the arrival of the others?

But Tobias knew he has to find his next target quickly. To his disappointment, but not at all surprise, he found her in the hospital's hospice section.

In a dark corner of the room was a bed, and connected to it were monitors of all kinds. The subject was a lady, one who looks much older than she really was, but is still elderly nonetheless. Her room was devoid of memorabilia of any kind, no family left to care for her. She had a book over her chest, held by her bony, wrinkly fingers, the window let moonlight shine in, dimly illuminating the room. Slowly the moonlight grew bright as the window opened, then a shadow grew over it, cast by Tobias as he soundlessly returned to his true form.

He walked over to the old lady, his hard feet silently pressing on the floor. Once he was over her, he closely examined the medical equipment she was attached to, jhis hands encased in black gloves made of an alien material. Once he was done examining her IV dripper bag and diagnosis he shook his head.

 _Looks like I was right._

Tobias took the IV bag and gently removed it with the care of someone holding a bubble in their fingers. When he put it down on her nightstand he took another bag out of his pocket. He held the bag, which was empty, and connected a tube to it. Tobias took the other end of the tube, and in the dim moonlight he was able to see perfectly. Tobias stuck the tube into his arm, hitting a vein, he watched as the transparent bag filled with his blood. Once a pint was in there Tobias removed the tube and sealed the wound with little effort.

Tobias raised the bag and walked back to the IV dripper.

((If you can hear me, I'm going to give you a transfusion,)) Tobias mentally spoke to the lady in a soft tone. ((Hopefully what I'm about to give you will wake you up. Just giving you a heads up, and letting you know I'm a friend, here goes.))

 _We're the same blood type, this has to work. Please, please Ellemist, let me not be too late._

He inserted the bag, and watched as his blood ran down the tube into the lady who was in a comatose sleep. Once it was over, Tobias took out a device the size of a baseball and attached it to her arm, and immediately upon connecting with her blood flow a liquid much darker than what should be flowing in her veins began to seep out into a bag at the other end of it.

Tobias put a hologram over the blood bag to make it look exactly like the IV bag he removed. Afterwards Tobias took the true IV bag and retreated to the other side of the room, his footsteps still failing to make any sound a human would hear. He turned with his back to the window and moonlight, sat down on the floor and turned vanished without leaving a clue that he was ever there. The only thing left to do was listen to the beeping of the EKG monitors, and hope for the best.


	17. XIV Filling The Deck, IV

_Filling the Deck IV_

* * *

Day 6, Evening

It was dark all throughout the city, even darker than it would normally be. Later on after we returned from the Gardens, the power had gone out across the entire city. Apparantly the nuclear plant that powered the whole city and surrounding area had suffered a malfunction. Nothing serious happened, we later learned that the reactor shut itself down without issues. We were flying over the darkened city as owls, getting our chosen morphs under control was going to be a nightmare, but for now, we have another issue to deal with. Cassie's not here because she wasn't feeling that good, when we dropped her off at her house she was pale...I hope it wasn't caused by the morphing tech.

((Alright, there it is. Right where it's supposed to be,)) I said as the place entered our field of vision.

((Oh man,)) Rachel commented. ((They didn't waste any time taking the sign off, did they?))

The building that was the Skridge Meatshop was a two-story building that was occupying a very wide space. Both floors of that building are _at least_ the size of a football field, the fact that this entire place is... _was_ run by a single family is impressive. The first floor is the shop section, the second floor is where they store all of the meat their shop uses. On the roof of the second floor we found the vent we were going to sneak through. I demorphed and tried to unscrew the vent, my fingers couldn't grab the screws for a while, but after some minutes I managed to get the cover off.

I took a hold of the vent and set it down gently on the roof and got a good look at my outline.

((I hope Tobias brings back some clothes we can morph in,)) I said to Rachel.

((Amen. When I signed up to save humanity, I did _not_ intend to do it while streaking.))

((I'll scout it out,)) I sent to Rachel before crawling in the vent. I'll need to figure out how to get bugs under control when Tobias comes back.

The vent's metallic insides were chilly, of course my bare skin doesn't get this kind of contact. I crawled through the vents and found a way into the giant freezer that was the entirety of the second floor. After I unscrewed the vent door out of the other entrance I gave Rachel the signal to come in.

((I want to ask you something,)) I said, shivering in the coldness of the room, which was even more brutally cold now that I wear nothing. ((How on Earth do you plan on getting this meat into your reserves anyway? You don't seriously plan to thaw it, chop it all up into bite sized pieces, then freeze them again and swallow it, right?))

((Well,)) Rachel began, shivering in the cold. ((Tobias said in his letter that the 'down the hatch' method is the easiest, not the only way. I just press it into my skin and think of adding it to my reserves, right?))

((Huh, okay, let's get started.))

It didn't take us long to find our first meat, when it came into contact with Rachel's skin her eyes were as wide as moons.

"HoOoOoOoOoOoOo, chilly!"

Rachel pressed the meat against herself, it was pretty big, but it wasn't oozing in.

((Rachel,)) I started.

((I'm fine,)) she said. ((Tobias said this method was harder, so all I have to do is try a bit harder.))

Rachel struggled, hugging the meat, I was worried we would both die of hypothermia at this rate. The soles of my feet are already starting to hurt.

((Rachel, I don't thi-)) I started, but was interrupted when she exclaimed in my head suddenly.

((Ha ha! Yes! I got it!))

In the darkness of the room I could see that the massive piece of meat Rachel was hugging get smaller.

((Awesome. I'll go turn off the refrigeration,)) I said while walking to the door that led to the rest of the shop.

((Wait! Don't do it,)) Rachel said as the massive slab of meat she was hugging disappeared, she moved on to another one. ((Fingerprints!))

((Ah nuts,)) I pointed out. ((Come to think about it, Tobias also said in his letter that we can expel the things we put in our biomass, right? So if I started absorbing the meatshop products, I'll be able to transfer them over to you, right?))

Rachel stopped.

((Huh, that's a pretty sweet idea. Let's do it!))

And so we went on a quest to absorb every piece of meat in the shop, it was difficult to phase the meat inside me at first, but it got easier as I picked up steam. We were in there for several hours, by the time we were done I felt the frostbite in my fingers and toes. It was even more of a pain to get the screws of the vents back on, but we left without a single trace that we were ever there.

"oh, oh! That hurts," I hissed when we got back on the rooftop, flexing and unflexing my fingers. The pain of the frostbite grew much sharper when we entered the warm summer night air.

((Let's turn owl.))

((I can't agree more!))

Before long the pain in our fingers disappeared as they were replaced with feathers. We ran to the edges of the building and took off, and two owls flew into the night sky once again. We flapped our wings, and while we could hear it, the sounds our wings made were far quieter than any other bird. I could even feel the silence in how smoothly the owl's wings, _my_ wings, cut through the air.

Throughout the night I had the most surreal feeling in my life so far, my cousin and I planned to break into a meatshop, which we carried out _perfectly_. Our purpose was to 'devour' as many of the products in there as possible so Rachel would gain the ability to morph into an elephant. Now Rachel and I were flying away from the scene of our crime as _owls_. What other kind of person would be able to go through such a chain of events?

My cousin and I flew silently to our next destination, and as we did I couldn't help but feel _enabled_ , by the morphing power. I felt freer than any other person on the planet, I mean, I can change my body at will, how free is that? And yet at the same time as I left myself to my thoughts, a sense of loneliness was growing inside me. I feel powerful, but as more time went on and my life grew further and further away from what it used to be, as myself, Cassie, and Rachel morphed animals and now we have embarked on our first mission, I felt strangely isolated. Here I am, flying through the night sky exactly as a Great Horned Owl, manipulating the air and catching the winds exactly the way a real owl would. I put my hand on the bird, and now his strength is mine, I can fly just as well as a hawk, an owl, or bat, run like a cheetah, a wolf, or a horse, see in whatever crazy perspective a chameleon, fly, or spider would...summon and control the untamable primal might of a lion, bear...or elephant. What other person is capable of _any_ of that?

I looked to Rachel as we flew to our next destination, she was flying ahead of me, we grew some distance apart, but I could still see her. Of course, the others, Tobias, Rachel, Cassie and I, it didn't seem like it then, but we were given a power that I'm barely just now beginning to really comprehend. But there was nobody else who could even dream of doing any of those things, Marco was left out, a decision he's regretting with the benefit of hindsight. I'm not alone in this, but there are only three other people like myself on the entire planet. Other than those three people, who else on Earth could possibly understand this? And when the dust clears after we've destroyed The last Controllers on the planet, who on our side will be left? I can only hope all of us make it out alive, but I can already tell none of us are getting out in one piece. But it doesn't matter, the four of us are _alone_.

In that moment as we flew to our next destination I realized that I had entered that world Elfangor and Tobias belonged to. A world of aliens, conspiracies, and power that no ordinary person would ever be able to dream of possessing. It was a dark and lonely place, one where we have to hold on to our friends and allies with everything we have, but determining friend from foe aside from the Controllers will be Hell, as we'll come to find out.

((Hey Jake,)) Rachel said, butting in my head. ((I was thinking.))

((About what?)) I responded.

((About the frostbite, I know we'll heal from it, having found out the hard way after trying to test my pain tolerance. Actually it's about the pain tolerance, Elfangor said we would get pain tolerance that was superhuman. And I figured we're not going to get all of the abilities at once, but every time we morph wouldn't that give ample opportunity to speed along the process? I mean, day six, and that meat locker stung like Hell, other than the morphing power we're still a bunch of humans. And Cassie's the supermorpher, so the changes would probably happen first in her, maybe that's what her getting sick really is, but that's a big maybe. The point is she's not getting any of the extra abilities either!))

((We'll definitely have to ask Tobias about it,)) I said. ((Marco's actually keeping a mini notebook filled with questions for the guy, he's already written that question down.))

((Okay,)) Rachel concluded. ((Oh, looks like our next stop is in sight. Looks like it's cats and dogs on the menu.))

((Cats and dogs? Like a vet?))

((I think it would pay to look around.))

I looked around to see what Rachel was talking about. It took a while for my eyes to find it, owl eyes don't move in their sockets.

((PETA?)) I asked in confusion. ((Why them? I didn't think PETA even has a kill shelter, don't those guys treat animals like royalty?))

((Oh you'd be very surprised,)) Rachel said darkly. ((Cassie told me about them. Every single last one of those guys are the worst breed of hypocrites. If I could bring a jug of gasoline I'd probably burn the place down...probably for the best I don't, though.))

((...I don't think I'm going to like what we find in there, am I?)) I asked Rachel.

((I promise you, you won't.))

* * *

I sat on the couch, wrapped up in a blanket. I was watching TV, Dad had gone to a friend's house and picked up a number of VCR tapes, recordings of some show about finding cryptids, like bigfoot, or encounters with creatures that may be aliens. I don't normally watch TV, but since the TV doesn't have cable, this particular show was a treat.

I felt the palms my hands begin itching, I opened my left hand and saw that a couple of welts had popped up in the palm. I felt funny in my throat again, but this time it's a _bad_ funny.

 _Is this a side effect of the morphing tech?_ I wondered. Is this feeling my body rejecting it, or beginning to fall apart? Or are the extra abilities about to kick in?

I returned my eyes to the TV when I heard the show's theme came back on. I decided to watch the most recent one first, this tape was actually recorded just a few hours ago, the episode aired for the first time earlier today. The show's host began speaking again in his deep, low droning voice.

"Things exist in our world and beyond you would not believe. From the alien to the supernatural, from spontaneous combustion to the glacial and insidious creep of the Magma Weed. There is the unknown, the unexpected, and the forgotten, but which are real? We're here to find out, but don't take our word for it, decide for yourself, is it Fact or Freaky?"

The title came on, in pale ghostly green letters. I shook my head and enjoyed the show, despite its somewhat cheesy title. It was already halfway done and the last creature was being introduced, and quickly becoming a favorite of mine.

"In a summer cabin in the Sierra leone mountains, a couple had an unexpected close encounter with a creature the likes of which none had seen before. It occurred only a few short days before the airing of this episode."

The scenery changed to a flyover of a forest before switching to a man and woman in their thirties.

"Allan and Maria Shepherd were finishing up getting ready to retire for the night in their house when the encounter happened."

"Maria was the one who actually saw it," Allan said. "She was taking out the trash when she heard the thing rummaging in the garbage. It was obviously _eating_ something, I assumed it was the leftovers of the chicken we had last night."

Maria nodded, "Yeah, when I saw it I ran back inside and got the camera. I thought it was a possum or raccoon at first, I think you know well how very... _wrong_ I was."

The scene changed to the side of their house, a wooden cabin, with the trash can still visible at the side. Maria began talking again, the visuals changed again, this time to a re-enactment of the scene. It was night and the trash can was shaking, Maria came on the screen, her Polaroid camera in hand

"I rushed back inside the house as fast as I could and grabbed the camera. I made a bet with Allan that a week wouldn't pass by before some scavenger got to that chicken. Well, I don't know what it was, but it was definitely not here for the KFC."

I chuckled.

Maria, in the re-enactment, crept up on the shaking trash bin. It was the large kind, with wheels and a hatch on top. Maria flipped the hatch open and took the picture, camera flashing, causing the screen to white out. The white faded, turning into the picture that Maria took of the creature. I blinked, the show's definitely living up to the tagline, this was the strangest thing in the entire episode.

It appeared to be a giant blue gecko with ivory white stripes, but it had what looked like dragonfly wings running parallel to its back, it was staring at the camera like a deer caught in headlights. Its huge mouth was wide open, as if in an expression of shock. The most attention grabbing feature were the eyes, which did _not_ belong to a lizard.

The eyes were green and massive bulbous spheres that extended over the top of the head, granting it 360 vision.

"After taking the picture it jumped out the trash bin," Maria elaborated as another re-enactment scene started. As the thing jumped up Maria backed away in cried out in shock.

"I tried to see where it had went, but it was gone. Like it had vanished into thin air."

"What's probably even weirder was what it was eating," Allan said. He leaned down and grabbed an object, making sure to hold it to the camera. "Our little guest was munching on this."

The object had _holes_ in it, but what was weird was that it meant the bugly-eyed lizard was eating _tin cans_ , or whatever metal cans are made from nowadays.

"What in the world _is_ that creature?" I wondered out loud. I blinked, this is not the weirdest thing I've seen, Just a week ago I met a dying shapeshifting alien who gave me, my best friend, and boyfriend the ability to morph.

I sighed and continued watching the show.

* * *

((Oh my God, that was horrible!)) I remarked as Rachel and I left the facility.

Rachel sighed in my head. ((See now why Cassie hates those guys?))

((A hundred percent,)) I answered. ((On the bright side, the frostbite's gone.))

((Ha ha, yeah,)) Rachel agreed. ((That crap _hurt_.))

I looked up at the sky, the Moon was beginning its dip down the sky.

((How long have we been out?)) I asked.

((Dunno,)) Rachel said. ((Weren't we also supposed to get an internal clock? I'm starting to think Tobias isn't being a hundred percent honest with us.))

((I think Tobias might have forgotten to include a few details in his letter. That's the most likely explanation,)) I responded. ((And Tobias isn't the kind of person to deceive, that aside his father died not even a week ago. I doubt strongly he has his crap together right now.))

((Where else should we hit?)) Rachel asked. ((Other than the meat shop and PETA, I'm not exactly sure where we could find more meat.))

((Let's head to the Gardens,)) I proposed. ((It's closed right now, I think. We're already out, and tonight's the perfect night for us to acquire our battle morphs.))

((Oh yeah, you're right!)) Rachel said. ((Let's do it!))

* * *

Day 6, 12:13 A.M.

The silence of the hospital remained undisturbed. Tobias was examining the monitor that recorded the information his father's tracking device was transmitting. The worm was moving to many places really quickly. But it seemed there were a few places it was going to more frequently than others, most concerningly all of these frequent places are in human towns close to where his friends live.

Some time ago the blood from the bag he had given had emptied into the woman's bloodstream a long time ago, and so he replaced it with the IV drip she had when he arrived. He removed the vascular filter he had given her, the lady's blood has been mostly cleansed of the impurities. His silence was total, and he waited patiently for a sign.

Then the lady began to stir, she moved around in her cot, Tobias looked up at her for the first time in a long while. The old lady opened up her eyes and looked around the room, she took the book in her hands and placed it on her nightstand.

"Hello?" She asked the room. "Are you still here?"

Tobias smiled widely and put his gloved hands to the ground and got up, deactivating his invisibility shroud.

"How are you feeling?" Tobias asked. "You're starting to look a hundred years younger."

"I _feel_ it," the lady said, clenching her fist with a strength her fingers had not known in a long time. "Thank you, whoever you are. My eyes haven't been what they used to be for a really long while. Are you..."

"Yes," Tobias answered her question before he could finish. "I'm the same as you."

"Yet I don't recognize you..." the elder remarked, her ancient voice lacking hostility, more curious than wary. She looked at her arm where the IV drip was connected to her, concern and worry appeared on her wrinkly face. "It seems I've truly lost track of time. How long was I out?"

"We are in the summer of 1996 A.D."

The old lady gasped, her long white hair shaking as she processed the information. She put a hand to her forehead.

"I can guess that you finally perfected the cube. That's the only possible reason you could have beaten my defect back with a transfusion of what I can assume would be _your_ blood."

"That assumption is correct," Tobias said, nodding in agreement as he removed the blue box from the bag he carried. "I also have the cube here with me."

The lady's eyes lit up. "Aaaaaah, there it is in person. Now I can finally join the battle against those beasts in their Citadel."

"The Citadel's been destroyed," Tobias reported.

The Elder's eyes looked disappointed.

"Oh, that's a bummer. At least the issues they come with are gone."

Tobias scratched the back of his head and looked away from her.

"There are a lot of things that happened while you were asleep. We're currently in another fight, I'm going to get a few more friends, I'll give you the coordinates to our current base. Ben will fill you in when you get there. In the meantime, you'll have to give me a name that can be used in _public_."

"Ah," the lady nodded. "So it's one of _those_ situations. Call me Ellen, Ellen King. I'll help you in any way I can."

Tobias nodded and presented the cube to Ellen.

"Are you ready, Ellen?"

"Alright, let's get this over with," Ellen said as she put her hand forward and touched the right side of the cube.

* * *

 _A few short minutes later, Ellen jumped out of the window, a bag clutched in her feet as her feathers were ruffled by the wind. After removing all evidence of his presence and their departure, Tobias leapt off of the roof, and made way to the final person he intends to recruit into the cause._

 _((Thank you, Tobias,)) Ellen said as she flew out of thought speak range. ((And be safe.))_

 _((You too, Ellen.))_

 _The two birds circled away from each other, flapping in the night air. As they flew on a strong wind pushed Ellen in the direction of the base, which Tobias was tempted to stop resisting it and give in, return to his last friends. But no, there was one last person Tobias needed to find, and if he wanted to find that person, he could not afford delays._


	18. Interlude 3, Sharpening His Talons

_Sharpening His Talons_

* * *

 **[2 Weeks before Jake, Rachel, and Cassie received the morphing power]**

 _It was night in the desert, and as such it was freezing cold. The desert is a hostile place to be in, especially at night, but in desperation, one Andalite had ventured there and was in the process of demorphing amid a formation of dunes that would keep him hidden. The process was slow as duck feathers turned into blue fur, a long and thick tail with what looked like an artichoke at the end, but was in fact the sheath for his tail blade. Stalk eyes with night vision lenses on them warily scanned the surrounding dunes for his pursuer. The Andalite's breath came out of his nasal slits as misty puffs of air in the hellish cold. Like Humans Andalites do not like the cold, yet another advantage the one hunting this Andalite has over him._

 _Once the transformation was complete the blue furred alien twitched all over and fell to his knees, breathing from the exertion._

That was too close, _he thought to himself. He put his shaking seven fingered hand to his side where there was a barely patched over gash. The pain was still sharp as he checked the wound, but the patch was holding up._

Those damnable crystals, _he thought, shaking his head, a habit he picked up from the humans._ So that's what it feels like, ah, by Crangar's bloody tail, that hurts! This morphing technology is so clunky! It can heal _everything_ , why is it having such trouble with this...this...purple glass?!

 _The Andalite moved his left hand away from his sealed wound to the vessel he carried. He opened the cap and removed a device shaped like a long staff. It looked like it was made from brass, and below the grip there were a number of small holes perforating the staff, but not going deeper than the core. At the top of the staff there appeared to be what looked like a silver colored flower, at the bottom there was a thick butt made of steel ending in a spike. The Andalite gripped the staff in both hands, desperately praying that the device would work. The moments that pass feel like lifetimes._

 _He flinched in fear as he heard the cry of his pursuer, a metallic guttural shriek of rage._

No! Do not lose focus! _The Andalite reprimanded himself._ If you lose focus then you're dead!

 _The warrior felt a pinprick on his hands, his fur began to straighten, and then the flower at the top flashed blue._

 _Relief came over him so potent that he almost collapsed to his knees._

Good, good, good. I still have a chance. I can still control it, _he thought with desperate relief._

 _The Andalite tilted the flower end of the staff towards his face, hands trembling from pain, and aimed his left eyestalk at it, bending the right one away. He sniffed the flower, and a silvery powder blew off of it and coated his eyes, it only took an instant for the coating to solidify once the powder stopped coating him. When all but one of the Andalite's eyes were blinded he raised the staff into the air, and planted the butt into the sand. He tilted it back and forth to force the staff deeper into the ground. In order for the weapon to work, he_ has to _make sure it's planted as deep in the earth as possible._

 _Another one of the monster's cries rang out, the Andalite nervously swiveled his right eye stalk in the direction of the sound._

 _It didn't take long for the Andalite to drive the staff down deep enough. He closed his eyes and sent out the command._

 **Launch.**

 _All of a sudden tiny explosions burst around the staff and sped away. The little digger drones were transmitting all of the visual and audio data they were receiving, even their location, what they saw, he saw. The Andalite smiled with his silver blinded eyes. The tiny drones were the size of baseballs, they ran all over the place, hidden, and hopefully unnoticed._

All right, _The Andalite Warrior thought as the drones poked their tiny observation devices out of the sand._ How are you going to take this weapon while I'm using it on you, my savage friend?

The drones burrowed throughout the sand, digging their way through the dunes, feverishly attempting to find their master's hunter.

 _They had traveled some distance and the Andalite Warrior was growing more concerned, he knew his opponent was a cunning and brutal warrior as well as a gunman with preternatural aim. His most dangerous assets were the weapons that enabled his ranged superiority, if he can see the Andalite Warrior, then he can shoot him. The warrior knew his chances of survival grew slimmer with each passing moment._

 _If everything went right, the drones deployed by the Digger Rod would find the enemy and render him incapable of using a gun._

 _A few minutes after they begun their search, one of the Diggers located a mass in the sand. The Andalite smiled with his eyes,_ found you.

 _The Andalite redirected the rest of the dig drones to the mass in the sand, in less than a minute all of the Diggers had surrounded the mass in the sand. Suddenly a dozen digger drones all rushed forward, rushing into the mass as the sand above them exploded from the speed of their approach, they ripped into the mass. He could see blood spray out as the mass was violently flayed alive and eviscerated, but after a few seconds into the gore-fest he noticed something was amiss. He called off his diggers and saw that it wasn't the target, it wasn't even alive at all!_

A decoy? _The Andalite thought before frantically looking around himself with his remaining eye. The Warrior barely managed to catch a glimpse of the shadow above him before it landed on top of him. He recalled the drones and swung his tail blade at his assailant, Warlike caught the tail with his left hand and squeezed hard enough to crush it._

 _((Aaaah!)) The Andalite cried out in pain. He raised his arm and with his remaining stalk eye aimed for his chest. Warlike stepped on his arm and crushed it, grabbing the staff with his right hand as the Shredder fell to the Andalite's side._

 _((No! No! NO!)) The Andalite Warrior cried out as the staff was pried from his much weaker hands._

 _The silver coating left the Andalite's eyes, rendering him able to see Warlike in all of his inhuman glory. His orange glowing eyes were perusing the staff he now held with disappointment and surprise._

 _"You can't be serious, you really thought...you_ actually thought _you could keep this from me?" Warlike mockingly reprimanded the Andalite before his eyes were overwhelmed in a wave of revulsion as they turned toward the Andalite. Warlike opened his mouth to say something else but was interrupted._

 _((It's a matter of principle, just because you can take something doesn't mean you should! You had no right to even lay eyes on it! You savage!))_

 _Warlike's expression melted into a mask of fury._

 _"Take? TAKE?!" He roared. "Oh that's rich, coming from an Andalite! What right do you, you feculent creature, have to lecture me about taking things that don't belong to me?! Take this staff you so so coveted, it's not even Andalite technology! So much for the talk about you Andalites being able to stand on only your feet."_

 _Warlike looked at the staff he now held and looked at it with an expression of pity. He scoffed before planting the staff in the sand and continuing._

 _"You probably didn't even realize that this is an agricultural tool that was later refashioned into a weapon. A devastatingly effective tool despite its makeshift nature, but my point stands, you do not understand this technology. Due to your ignorance alone, this device is better off in_ my _hands."_

 _The drones returned to the staff, crawling up its length and refusing with the rod itself._

 _((What are you planning on doing after you eradicate us from this world?)) The Andalite asked in a tired voice._

 _"After I wipe you from the face of this planet?" Warlike asked._

 _((Yes, you keep saying you were out to kill us all. Are you going to slaughter the rest of my kind beyond this world as well?))_

 _"After I'm done extincting your human allies on this Earth, and extract appropriate reparations from the remainder of their race, maybe I will."_

 _Warlike violently removed the staff from the ground, blinking his orange glowing orbs despite the sand failing to reach them._

 _"But, maybe I'll get burnt out. Maybe I'll run out of steam and be content to spend the rest of my days here. That aside, I have no business divulging my intentions to you, who cannot hope to understand. Aloth, I believe you are called? You Andalites_ still _use names, right?"_

 _At the utterance of his name the Andalite pointed his remaining eyes towards his enemy. Upon hearing the insult at the end, the warrior began shaking with rage._

 _((If you're going to kill me, then just get it over with already!))_

 _"Ah, defiant to the end, you're not cold or hateful, and though you don't understand much, you're not arrogant. Were you more enlightened you would've beaten me. I know you don't care about the mission on this planet nearly as much as your superiors, who are now gone, do. You're not the kind of threat I'm here to kill, I_ like _you, so let's cut a deal, trust on trust. Tell me where he is, and I'll allow you to leave with every injury upon your body undone and with your dignity intact."_

 _Aloth's eyes began looking into a distant place as he processed his words._

 _"Tell me," Warlike repeated in a calm and smooth drone, his words washing over the Andalite like the high tide gently washing the sand into the sea. "Where is Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul?"_

 _((O-okay, we have a deal,)) Aloth said, the shame evident in his voice. ((Elfangor is currently en-route to Alaska, he's going to-))_

 _Before the Andalite could know anything was coming, Warlike swung his right hand out and pierced Aloth's skull with a green rod. Warlike's eyes fluttered shut as light danced behind the lids. After a few seconds Warlike opened them, unperturbed at the violence of the sudden action he had taken a mere moment before. As a matter of fact Warlike was wearing a disappointed expression on his face as he removed the rod from Aloth's brain._

 _"Oh, smart boy. You could've told me you didn't know."_

 _Warlike turned away from Aloth's body and stepped off of him, retracting the rod back into its wrist mounted sheath. He went to a flat part of the desert and leaned down, planting the staff in the ground besides him. When he was on his knees Warlike began digging a hole, when the hole was wide and deep enough he placed dried leaf litter and grass in the hole, after lighting it on fire he removed a wide metallic bowl from the sack he was carrying on his back and put it in the flaming hole. A breeze began blowing in the freezing cold desert air. Warlike closed his eyes and looked upward, a small smile on his face._

 _"At least I know where to find a few more of your fellow filth now...if anyone would bother to bury you, at least your eulogy would say you're not a traitor. But then again, the opinions of your dinner generally shouldn't be regarded."_

* * *

 **[1 Week & 6 Days before Jake, Rachel, and Cassie received the morphing power]**

A van rolled through the desert that was packed with sensory equipment, it was filled with a detachment of soldiers, all grim faced and determined. The vehicle had the letters _ETCS_ painted on the side.

"There it is, right here!" The operator of the sensors in the right side of the seat called out. The van braked to a stop, kicking up sand as the tires halted the vehicle's momentum.

"All right, let's go," the commander said as his squadron exited the van. They split into two groups and circled the dune, they almost reunited when the group walking counterclockwise found it.

They dug quickly and feverishly as the rest of the squadron reunited with them, the radios started buzzing and more cars began pulling up to the site. It didn't take them long to uncover the remains of the alien they had tracked there.

The commander sighed and shook his head at the sight of the alien corpse, the flesh of which had been stripped from the bones. He put his left hand to his ear.

"West Pacific Counter-Op Squad 11 to Control, Chapman here, we found the Andalite, he's dead. Requesting ETCS Materials Extraction to assist in removing the remains."

"Solid copy," ETCS Control replied. "Secure the sight, we are sending a team straight to you."

One of the younger soldiers shook his head, "Man, it looks like whatever got ahold of him stripped the flesh from his bones."

"One of the few good aliens, and among humanity's only allies, and he just gets murdered in the Mojave and eaten?"

"Did the freak even _wait_ until he was dead to eat him?"

"Judging by how quickly we dug him up, whatever did this to him just left him there."

"This world's cruel, men," Chapman told his squadron. "Make no mistake, they understood it more than anyone, the world they live in is way crueler than ours. But whatever did this to him is still on the loose, we're going to have a busy month on our hands..."


	19. Announcement of Hiatus

I am sorry but things are getting a bit hard due to the virus sweeping the world. With the economy being tanked, and many people delving deeper into insanity, then I am very sorry, but this is where I stop. I will continue the story, but as of today it is officially on hiatus. I know you like this tale I have meticulously crafted, Twilight of the Animorphs will return after this calamity is over.


End file.
